from Revolver News:
With the economy collapsing, geopolitical tensions threatening outright war, and an historic election on the horizon, one could be forgiven for missing one of the more interesting and portentous stories unfolding in the news—namely, the fact that two NASA astronauts seem to be stranded on the International Space Station as a result of the legendary incompetence of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
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With two NASA astronauts still stranded in space for weeks, officials at the space agency have insisted that the troubled Boeing Starliner, plagued with technical issues, can take the two explorers back to Earth.
So, why haven’t they already?
An unnamed retired astronaut tells The Atlantic the obvious truth that NASA has been dancing around since the beginning of this space boondoggle: it’s just too risky right now.
“Of course they don’t feel comfortable putting them in the vehicle,” the retired astronaut told the magazine, referring to the Starliner, which transported the astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) back in June and is meant to return them back home. “Otherwise they would have put them in it already.”
Although Boeing claims a return trip should be possible this month, the Starliner’s checkered history of failures and delays calls this timeline into doubt.
No date has been set for a return trip, with the earliest date now pushed back to August. To explain away the delay, NASA officials have said repeatedly that they want to test and troubleshoot the Starliner capsule before committing to a return trip.
The trouble started when helium leaks were discovered on Starliner prior to takeoff. They opted to launch anyway, and on its journey toward the ISS, it started experiencing additional leaks and malfunctioning thrusters.
Boeing has gotten the brunt of the negative press, not least because the company’s airplanes have been in the news for falling doors and other quality control issues, casting a pall over its space efforts as well.
But NASA shouldn’t escape scrutiny, the Atlantic article argues, and the space agency has been less than forthcoming with issues surrounding the Starliner, which has been ill-fated from the start of its development with various technical issues and aborted launches.
Things are getting so bad that, despite Boeing’s strenuous protestations to the contrary, it looks like there is a strong chance that Boeing’s competitor SpaceX will have to send one of its Crew Dragon spacecraft to safely return the stranded astronauts to earth.
NASA this week has been discussing the possibility of returning Starliner empty and instead using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft to return its astronauts. There is no consensus among those responsible for making the decision, that person said, calling the outcome of NASA’s ongoing discussions unpredictable given the variety of factors involved.
Boeing’s ill-fated Starliner program has been in the works since 2010, making the project nearly 15 years old. The idea of the Starliner was to develop a spacecraft and space capsule capable of taking astronauts and space tourists alike to the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit. The first Orbital Test Flight did not take place until 2019, almost 10 years later, and it was a spectacular failure as a “software error” forced the test launch to abort prematurely. Numerous failures, billions of dollars, and years later, the Starliner managed to dock successfully in an unmanned mission to the International Space Station in May 2022. After multiple delays, Starliner’s third manned flight to the space station took off on June 5th of this year and was scheduled to return on June 14th, barely more than a week later. As of the time of this writing, it is August 6th, and the Starliner has still not returned, leaving two astronauts effectively stranded on the International Space Station on account of thruster problems, helium leakages, and a whole host of other difficulties. How embarrassing!
As mentioned above, there is a decent chance that Boeing will have to have their competitor, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, rescue the stranded astronauts with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. NASA’s Associate Administrator William Gerstenmeier gushed about how excellent Boeing’s Starliner proposal was, enthusiastically approving Starliner’s $4.2 billion contract compared to SpaceX’s $2.6 billion contract. Ironically, Gerstenmeier currently works at SpaceX as Vice President of Build and Reliability. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has had multiple successful crewed missions (including return trips) spanning all the way back to May of 2020.
