In space, no one can hear your screams… about travel delays.
Two American astronauts were stuck on the International Space Station for two months; their round-trip flight was supposed to take nine days.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched on June 5 in the Starliner, a Boeing-built spacecraft that cost NASA a whopping $4.2 billion, and expected to return home on June 14.
But a series of malfunctions, including five engines failing and helium leaks throughout the spacecraft, made their landing on the ISS rocky. NASA and Boeing spent the next 60-plus days troubleshooting to determine whether the Starliner could be trusted to bring the astronauts home.
Now it looks like they might be stuck up there until Next yearwhile NASA is mooting the idea of the pair returning with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon crew, which is scheduled to depart for the ISS in September and return in February.
The good news: The ISS is well equipped and the astronauts can feel as comfortable as two people stranded in space can.
The not so good news: NASA and Boeing messed up this mission badly from the start.
In the run-up to launch, Starliner showed significant signs of trouble.
The first manned launch was already years behind schedule due to repeated design flaws. Then NASA and Boeing discovered a helium leak on board before the June 5 launch, but deemed it too small a problem to justify another abort of the mission.
It is safe to say that this was the wrong decision.
This is another headline for Boeing, following headlines last year about doors and wheels on its jets flying off in mid-flight.
But things are even worse at NASA: It seems to be falling back into the same bungling that led to two space shuttle disasters.
Also insulting is that both NASA and Boeing swear that the astronauts are not “stuck” and could return to Earth with the Starliner if they absolutely had To.
This is blatant nonsense designed to take the pressure off the decision makers who put Williams and Wilmore in a nightmarish situation.
NASA is even floating The possibility of a rescue by SpaceX shows that there are serious doubts as to whether the Starliner is capable of bringing its crew home safely.
Boeing, on the other hand, has already suffered cost overruns of $1.6 billion due to the Starliner fiasco and is obviously afraid of being overshadowed by its competitor SpaceX.
We are enthusiastic supporters of the space program and the growing role of the private sector in it, but this is a red flag – and not just because of a technical failure.
NASA management must take responsibility for this: something needs to change if it still trusts Boeing to build the equipment to send humans to Mars.
Congress can certainly ask questions, but the space agency’s entire decision-making process probably needs to be reviewed by rocket scientists. And the best management experts.
The future of humanity in space is far too important to be left to this gang that isn’t even capable of launching missiles straight.
