Troubled Boeing Starliner Returning to Earth Empty
Boeing employees “humiliated” that crew will be returning aboard SpaceX Dragon in February. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s company launches historic mission, Polaris Dawn.
The last time I reported on the Boeing Starliner mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the crew’s 8-day trip could morph into an 8-month stay because the return trip might be on another spacecraft.
That possibility has turned out to be a reality. The Starliner is returning to Earth empty, and the crew is coming home on a SpaceX Dragon in February.
Boeing will return its Starliner capsule from the International Space Station without the NASA astronauts that it delivered to orbit in early June, the agency announced on Saturday.
With Starliner coming back to Earth empty, NASA will now have astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams return via SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which is expected to launch its ninth regular mission to the ISS for the agency on Sept. 24.
Ultimately, Wilmore and Williams will stay at the ISS for about six more months before flying home in February on SpaceX’s Crew-9 vehicle. The test flight was originally intended to last about nine days.
The decision to bring Starliner back from the ISS empty marks a dramatic about-face for NASA and Boeing, as the organizations were previously adamant that the capsule was the primary choice for returning the crew.
NASA concluded that the Starliner thrusters were unreliable enough to ensure the crew’s safety.
While the pair integrated with the “Expedition 71” crew aboard the ISS, assisting them with research and other responsibilities, NASA officials have said Wilmore and Williams are using up more supplies meant for the ISS crew.
Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said that NASA teams spent all summer looking over the data on Starliner and felt there was too much risk with regard to the vehicle’s thrusters.
“There was too much risk for the crew,” he said.
A Boeing spokesperson said in a statement that the company “continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft.”
Boeing employees are embarrassed that its rival is bailing them out of serious trouble.
The Florida-based staffer with Boeing’s space program said the decision was the latest blow to the aerospace giant, which is already suffering backlash from a slew of commercial flight incidents earlier this year.
“We have had so many embarrassments lately, we’re under a microscope. This just made it, like, 100 times worse,” said one worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“We hate SpaceX,” he added. “We talk s–t about them all the time, and now they’re bailing us out.”
“It’s shameful. I’m embarrassed, I’m horrified,” the employee said.With morale “in the toilet,” the worker claimed that many in Boeing are blaming NASA for the humiliation.
Perhaps more merit and less diversity are needed at Boeing.
🚨BREAKING: Elon Musk says that Merit should be the only reason for hiring.
Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/AvF0vTQmNv
— Ian Jaeger (@IanJaeger29) January 11, 2024
Meanwhile, SpaceX is on track to make some history over the next few weeks.
SpaceX is about to launch four private astronauts farther than any human has flown since the end of the Apollo era. The crew will be on a mission to perform history’s first commercial spacewalk.
The mission, Polaris Dawn, will liftoff early Tuesday (Aug. 27), from SpaceX’s Launch Complex-39A, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center — the same pad that supported all the crewed Apollo missions to the moon.
Though it’s true each of SpaceX’s astronaut launches to date has flown out of LC-39A, it’s particularly fitting that the members of Polaris Dawn will also launch from there, as this mission will take them further than any crewed flight has gone since Apollo 17, in 1972.
Competition breeds innovation and excellence. Perhaps instead of whining about its competitor, Boeing management and employees up their game.
MEI. Merit. Excellence. Innovation.
I like this idea https://t.co/sd3zZXQUfi
— Stella Garrett (@watching_skies) July 1, 2024
Hopefully, Team Boeing will learn some valuable lessons. It has a lot of catching up to do if it’s going to race ahead of Team SpaceX.
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Comments
The calculation isn’t astronauts’ safety but danger to regulators and officials from Monday morning quarterbacks if something happens. It means job loss.
Astronauts are a little less fearful.
It will probably be difficult for Boeing to reverse course because they were riding that grift for so long. People need to be fired, starting at the top.
Part of me hopes it comes down perfectly fine, so we can all say “See? You’re a bunch of Safetyist ninnies!”
Another part of me hopes this thing burns up spectacularly where everyone can see it. (And go “Oooh. Aaaaah.”) And it will simply break the back of Boeing. (So we can start something new in its place.)
Despite what Nelcon said, you can be certain that politics was a factor in the decision. Imagine losing two astronauts a few weeks before the election, especially since the VPOTUS chairs the National Space Council. (Of course they only deal with policy rather than operations, but that is not how the game of politics is played.) Now, back to this week’s episode of Gilligan’s Space Station.
Could the gender and racial diversity of the station’s crew be the smiling face of ground-based DEI incompetence?
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