On 28 June 2024, the NYT wrote:
Beginning next week, engineers will conduct ground tests at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico using a thruster identical to the ones on Starliner. The firings will reproduce the ones that Starliner performed in space.
That will probably take a couple of weeks, Mr. Stich said. “Then we’ll give engineers a chance to go look at that thruster,” he said. “This will be the real opportunity to examine a thruster, just like we’ve had in space.”
(https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/science/boeing-starliner-nasa-astronauts.html)
My question is this: Aren’t these the kind of tests that should have been done BEFORE even the first orbital flight test?