NASA said Thursday it will decide this weekend whether Boeing’s new capsule is safe enough to return two astronauts from the International Space Station, where they’ve been waiting since June.
Administrator Bill Nelson and other top officials will meet Saturday. An announcement is expected from Houston once the meeting ends.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner on June 5. The test flight quickly encountered thruster failures and helium leaks so serious that NASA kept the capsule parked at the station as engineers debated what to do.
SpaceX could retrieve the astronauts, but that would keep them up there until next February. They were supposed to return after a week or so at the station.
That’s why you always pack more underwear than you think you will need.
Come to think of it, how do astronauts do laundry?
Edit: I looked it up. They don’t. Dirty laundry is ejected into space to burn up on re-entry. So these poor travelers probably did not pack for an 8 month trip.
This is a great idea for a porn plot: several young, fit people in an enclosed space with nothing to do, cause they finished their assigned tasks weeks ago. Lots of positions that aren’t physically possible in earths gravity.
And they just ejected their last set of clothes.Now I just need funding to film it in zero G.
Vague memory from years ago, but I think that The Uranus Experiment 2 has a zero-g moneyshot.
Porn is going to do to commercial space flight what it did for the Internet and VHS.
Now I just need funding to film it in zero G.
I don’t wanna spoil things, but if you’re looking for floating strange liquids, maybe check out the new Alien movie.
Unfortunately, erections probably don’t work that well in zero G, although NASA has been neglectful in testing this thoroughly.
That makes zero sense
Mashable has answered the question.
There’s been one movie that had part of an anal scene in zero G lol.
I think it was a czech porno or something. Don’t ask me how I know.
No, sorry, I am going to ask you how you know.
“This meant Wilmore and Williams were forced to ration their clean clothes. Thankfully, a resupply mission earlier this month gave them a few extra pairs of scrubs.” Source
Imagine how worried their families must be this whole time. I can’t imagine “my family member has been stuck in space for months” is a type of stress that many people would relate to.
They probably shouldn’t worry so much. Way more people have died in Boeing airplanes than in Boeing spaceships.
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I actually was sitting here thinking about it from the astronauts’ perspective… I’m sure their mental fortitude is more robust than the average human, but could you imagine being indefinitely stranded in a Pringles can whipping around the planet once every 90 minutes with zero ability to do anything to extricate yourself from the situation? The thought makes my skin crawl… but I don’t fly for the same reasons lol
And people want to colonize mars
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I think the astronauts should decide.
What is gained by taking the responsibility away from them, and handing it to some other person? I could maybe see it if I trusted that other person to be more qualified, but if they are NASA administration, then I don’t.
There are many astronauts in the ground in nasa too, and people who actually design and build spaceships
How many of them were involved in overriding the engineers as regarded launching the Challenger?
(I would recommend “Riding Rockets” as a pretty good book to read for a general overview of the safety culture in NASA management and the reasons I don’t trust them to make this decision. Honestly, for all I know, things have changed radically since then – but given that NASA management were the ones that sent them up on a Boeing spacecraft in the first place when years ago I was already able to see that Boeing was no longer capable of doing safe engineering of even civilian commercial air travel, I kind of doubt it.)
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Good thing the article specifies “engineers” then
Incorrect
Administrator Bill Nelson and other top officials will meet Saturday. An announcement is expected from Houston once the meeting ends.
Engineers are evaluating a new computer model for the Starliner thrusters and how they might perform as the capsule descends out of orbit for a touchdown in the U.S. Western desert. The results, including updated risk analyses, will factor into the final decision, NASA said.
The article makes a specific point about “top officials” being the ones at the meeting, and makes a distinction between those engineers and “NASA” who is the one making the decision.
Why would NASA burn its credibility like this to keep Boeing warm?
They won’t. I think that’s why this is happening on a Saturday- stock markets are closed so it won’t instantly tank Boeing’s stock price.
Look back at the last few space disasters that killed people- Challenger and Columbia. In both cases it was the same- someone in NASA tried to sound the alarm but they didn’t listen because of organizational culture or whatever. Thus the people at the top of NASA could say with a straight face ‘we didn’t know, we will change culture to listen to the little guy who thinks there’s a problem’. And so, we all forgave them for making us watch heroes die on live TV.
This is different. The alarm has been sounded and it’s been sounding for months. Everyone at all levels of NASA, Boeing, and for that matter the general public know that Starliner has a very serious thruster problem. There’s no excuses here, no ‘promise to fix culture’ or new procedure that could forgive an accident. If Butch and Suni blow up on live TV there’ll be no excuses anyone for anyone to make because the decision is being made with everyone fully informed. The public at large will know it happened because NASA trusted ‘don’t bolt the doors on Boeing’ with the lives of American heroes. The American people will demand that heads roll at both NASA and Boeing and it may well happen too. We don’t like watching real heroes die on live TV.
So look at Starliner right now. The thrusters have problems that make them overheat and shut off when commanded to fire and, as of when I last checked, Boeing isn’t even sure what’s wrong.
Point is- if Starliner crashes with Americans on board, NASA won’t just be burning credibility. They’ll be burning themselves, Boeing, and the entire manned space program.
So I predict the flight readiness review before the press conference is just a formality, that the decision has already been made to bring our people back on Crew Dragon. And I’m sure someone from Boeing will be all thumbs up over an ‘overabundance of caution’.
Because ultimately, NASA was supposed to oversee these projects and ensure safety for their astronauts.
Because NASA has been through similar shit, ie: 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia disasters.
So do the astronauts even get a say in this? I’m not sure I’d WANT to fly home in that thing.
Yes of course they do. You can’t force them, obviously.
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Ah, I’m not the only one who pushed some Friday work to the indeterminate “weekend”
Well, of course, but there can be some serious pressure put on them. Staying on board literally causes changes to future missions and a host of other things NASA had plans for.
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MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
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https://apnews.com/article/boeing-starliner-nasa-astronauts-space-3e5d649dc6c68063835beae25d27ba18
My take on this is maybe a little calloused and mean but why is NASA involved in that decision? They hired contractors to take over the launch this part of their program. One of the contractors has an equipment problem snd that is on them to overcome in a safe manner. I don’t want the Boeing astronauts to get hurt but this isn’t NASA’s risk to accept or mitigate.
Because those are NASA astronauts on there, not Boeing employees. So NASA stepped in.
This flight is not a Boeing mission, its a NASA mission
