The agency had insisted for a couple of months that it was confident that Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore would return on Starliner.
  • Baggins@piefed.socialEnglish
    29·
    5 months ago

    This just underlines the need for reliable alternatives. They’ve pumped billions into Starliner and now looks like they’ll need billions more. Someone needs to answer for this.

    • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
      294·
      5 months ago

      This 👏 is 👏 what 👏 the 👏 NASA 👏 space 👏 shuttles 👏 were 👏 for!

      I’m still sour that the shuttle program wasn’t replaced by a better shuttle program. For All Mankind is an instruction manual, you guys!

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
        113·
        5 months ago

        You realize that orbiter had the exact same operational and institutional issues that are the root cause of the current Boeing issues, yes? Just 30+ years later.

        So if you spooled the orbiter program forward by the same amount of years, chances are it’ll have the exact same flaws. Institutionalized deviance was what brought down their two orbiters after all, and it’s the root flaw in all of Boeing’s current issues, too. The driving cause might be different (Boeing is cheapskating due to wanting to pay themselves higher CEO bonuses, NASA was cheapskating due to political defunding), but the impacting issue is the same.

        The reason SpaceX works so well right now is because it’s so new. It can pump absurd amounts of money into its shit. It’ll develop the same issues if it ever has to make due with less cash. Which points to the root cause pretty neatly.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      5 months ago

      They’re too big to fail, so they’ll continue stealing from tax payers en mass until a non corporate whore does something about it.

      • SatouKazuma@lemmy.world
        54·
        5 months ago

        Seize the means of production. Honestly, that private businesses have been allowed to exist has been one of the greatest mistakes in American history.

  • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
    9·
    5 months ago

    If they’ve made up their mind about it, I want them to bring back the empty capsule as is. Just to see what happens.

    • weew@lemmy.ca
      9·
      5 months ago

      The real joke is that the can’t bring back an empty capsule.

      Boeing, in their infinite wisdom, decided to disable the software that would allow Starliner to undock by itself.

      Despite it already having done this during its second test run.

      So as of now, at least one astronaut MUST be inside the capsule to get this $6 billion space barnacle detached from the space station. They can’t even send up the “rescue” ship because there wouldn’t be any place for it to dock.

      • Morphit @feddit.uk
        4·
        5 months ago

        I think it’s more that they haven’t tested the software changing mode mid-mission. At least that’s Scott Manley’s impression(@5:50ish).

        Given the software issues thus far, I can see they’d be a bit wary that flipping that switch could cause problems.

        I would think they could set it back to autonomous mode but that they have to do the testing and validation to prove the system will tolerate the change with no issues.

      • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
        31·
        5 months ago

        So basically, the ISS has the equivalent of a car up on blocks parked in its driveway. How delightful.

        It’s a shame they can’t toss the responsible Boeing/NASA folks out that same airlock.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    4·
    5 months ago

    Man, just imagine you’re all excited about your eight day trip into space and then finding out you might be there six months. It’s a very different decision if you got to make it in advance. But then having no agency about it and just having to tough it out would be awful.

  • PMFL@lemmy.worldPortuguês
    2·
    4 months ago

    Imagine the astronauts and their families, how is it possible for this to happen just a few kilometers from the surface of the Earth? It doesn’t leave much confidence in the systems we currently have available. If they can’t even rescue these poor souls, let alone talk about expanding into space, occupying the Moon, going to Mars… With this news, when they talk about these topics, only we will want to laugh!