NASA spokesperson Josh Finch told Ars on Thursday evening, “NASA is evaluating all options for the return of agency astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station as safely as possible. No decisions have been made, and the agency will continue to provide updates on its planning.”
A standard statement like this doesn’t really warrant a news article.
That is a notable change from “we’re just double checking things on the Starliner, which we think we can fix. We expect them to ride it home soon” that has been the message for a long time. Now it’s “we’re looking at all options”.
For weeks it hasn’t been about fixing starliner for the return trip, it’s been about studying the thrusters before they get destroyed on return.
The claim is it’s been okay to come back for quite awhile.
Imagine setting NASAs credibility on fire to keep Boeing warm.
Have Red Bull send up some space suits and parachutes.
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Lmao.
I’m sorry to laugh, but it’s just the absurdity of it all.
The downward spiral of Boeing is insane.
I got hired 2 days before all this shit! Had a pretty alright gig as a regional analyst before accepting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
At this point I’m expecting the big Boeing building down the street by NASA to collapse in on itself and the doors to be found 3 towns over.
It would be quite something if the Everett assembly building collapsed like a circus tent.
Largest building by volume in the world.
I literally just learned about that about an hour ago on a documentary show I’m watching.
The parking is worse than Disneyland and it takes 30 minutes to get from your car to desk.
So it’s a fitness benefit
The irony of not being able to spiral downward, when spiraling downward.
This is how you know when to buy their stock
But don’t worry though, NASA says the astronauts are “not stranded”.
Yes, these headlines are continuing to say the astronauts are stranded, which really isn’t the case. This vehicle is working well enough to return them at any time.
The thing is, there is something weird going on with some of the thrusters (of which there are many for redundancy) and this is their only chance to investigate the issue. If they were to return with the astronauts now, it would mean leaving the thrust module to burn up in the atmosphere, and we wouldn’t be able to test the problematic parts. We could still do that (leave now), but we’d miss out on this opportunity to test theories and understand better why some thrusters failed.
Perhaps if they released some clue what they are learning, and what weeks 9, 10, 11, and 12 will reveal about the problem. Around week 4 this was a PR disaster and the silence is speaking even if they aren’t.
Well, the aerospace industry is not really known for moving quickly… But then Boeing collects a paycheck either way, so they don’t seem to be in any particular hurry.
But I don’t know, I’m not sure it’s a pr disaster, I mean it’s no worse than it usually is up there. We’ve had a Soyuz that sprang a leak and started venting atmosphere. We’ve had random helium leaks into crew compartments. We’ve run out of working eva suits. We’ve had resupply missions that never actually made it all the way to orbit, we’ve had a lot of non-critical internal equipment failures.
It’s a real challenge keeping everything working, this is just one example of how things can go wrong. (Though admittedly, not a lot has really ever gone right with Starliner.)
Pretty sure the ISS always has a Soyuz on hand to bring astronauts back, but if they use that, then all the astronauts have to go back because the “bail out” options will be gone. So troubleshooting and getting the boeing capsule working is the primary goal.
Well yes, that would suck to have to abandon the ISS for any period. Definitely not optimal. But as I said, they could leave in the Starliner right now, if they wanted, they have more than enough thrusters functional to control the craft. It just makes more sense to stay until they’ve done all the troubleshooting and know how to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
They’re not. Whether they return on Starliner is the question. SpaceX can send a Dragon up to bring them back easily.
As far as the Starliner mission is considered, they are stranded. Dragon is the rescue mission.
I mean, Soyuz is the emergency rescue plan. Usually 2 of them sit docked to the ISS at all times for just this purpose. But regardless, the Starliner is functional enough they could leave right now if they had to. They just aren’t stranded, NASA isn’t just like… lying.
The Starliner has redundant systems and even with several thrusters offline it’s still within safe operating parameters. They’re keeping it docked because they want to figure out the problem, not because they need to figure out the problem.
There isn’t a dragon capsule ready to go at the moment, but it doesn’t really matter, it shouldn’t be needed. Because as I said, nobody is stranded, at least not yet.
All this reads weird. Private spacecraft sucks, recent Boing corporate culture sucks, SpaceX sucks even more. But this is Boings first flight and it seems it’s a relatively minor problem so I’m curious why there is so much backlash. I guess it’s a mixture between general anger at Boing for mismanaging their expertise, fatigue about private aeronautics and maybe spaceX fanboys?
Dunno. I’d imagine astronauts would kill for more time in space, part of this seems manufactured drama.
I’m curious why there is so much backlash.
I mean, there isn’t really the wrong amount of backlash, it just gets misreported as more serious than it is, and then everyone enjoys dog piling on someone they can blame. But to be clear, Boeing is indeed fucking up pretty bad right now pretty much all over over the place.
And the truth is, Elon Musk sucks, probably more than ever. He’s becoming a worse human being by the minute. But SpaceX on the other hand, SpaceX has been doing great pretty much since they started. I understand being nervous about private space flight, the proposition is a bit of a gamble. But as much as Boeing is shitting the bed right and left, spaceX has been making up for it by nailing it pretty consistently.
Huh I recently watched a video about how SpaceX basically squandered the renewed interest in the moon (EDIT: It was actually a remix of a Smarter Every Day video, about how they need dozens of launches for a single flight to the moon). Arguably the creator Thunderf00t is a very biased shitposter, but their plan seemed absurd and included blatant corruption. Imho SpaceX has done some good stuff but it’s a pretty mixed bag.
Do you know a youtube channel that is smart about reporting about spaceflight without overt fanboy biases?
Do you know a youtube channel that is smart about reporting about spaceflight without overt fanboy biases?
Actually, yeah I do know some!
Probably the best source has to be Scott Manley, he reports on every rocket launch whether it’s in the US, China or anywhere else. He doesn’t seem to have any particular bias, he just likes space. He’s also really good at explaining things and actually qualified to talk about the subject, with his degrees in astronomy and physics.
There’s also Tim Dodd, everyday astronaut. He likes to do deep dives on how rockets work and compares various rockets and their capabilities. I wouldn’t say he’s unbiased so much as just a fanboy of all big awesome rockets…
They both like to do live streams for big exciting launches. Tim is so good at the streams, that one of the smaller rocket companies (I think Firefly or Astra) recently hired him to be the commentator on their official launch stream. Heh, then they didn’t actually make orbit… Doh!
And as you mentioned, Smarter Every Day is also really great. Destin isn’t really unbiased but he’s real up front about where his biases are. It’s clear that what really matters to him is the science and understanding what’s really going on.
Totally not stranded! The capsule that will bring them back just goes to another school.
You wouldn’t know that capsule. It’s . . . It’s Canadian.
If only, those Canadian space modules are sexy…
Oh - please. We’ve “splashed down” lots of times.
Boeing doesn’t listen to their engineers, but we’re supposed to listen to their marketing department.
Yeah, I am seriously upset. NASA press office seems to be telling lies left and right, and they think they’re just pulling the old Washington spin cycle, but it’s obvious lies. And they’re easy out of line.
They issued a 248k “emergency” engineering study contract to SpaceX to support extra pax on the dragon. NASA press office claimed this award had absolutely nothing to do with Crew Test, but this was immediately contradicted by anonymous internal sources.
Heads need to roll at NASA PAO.
Totally not related. Just requested shortly after Starliner arrived at the station with issues. With an expeditious response. Totally normal procedures. Nothing to see here.
I’m just glad they have a ready-to-deploy backup plan. SpaceX is nailing it. I just hope that the future will remember the terrific work that Gwynne Shotwell and many others did while “someone else” where busy tossing money away.
Sorry, no. Fuck SpaceX. They are helping destroy everything.
https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-internet-b2567423.html
Ehhh needs more study. Aluminum oxides in the atmosphere actually provide a cooling effect. That being said, we don’t know much about the health implications yet.
It’s not about heat, it’s about aluminium oxides damaging the ozone layer.
Right on. The “cooling effect” will hopefully offset all the kerosene and methane they’re injecting into the upper atmosphere and oceans.
They’re injecting water vapor and carbon dioxide, as well as soot (not kerosene or methane). I don’t mean to imply that it’s not an issue, but that more study is warranted (the article says the same thing).
Do you know what those clouds are that come out of the engine at cut off and start up are? Not water vapour or carbon dioxide.
If we’re talking Falcon 9, the ignition is using TEA-TEB, a fairly nasty hypergolic. It burns to water vapor and carbon dioxide, plus some boron oxides.
Starship doesn’t use a chemical igniter, so yes, there’s probably a small amount of methane that escapes during ignition. Generally though the combustion for Starship is incredibly clean, with something like a 99.5% efficiency.
Theres nothing to ignite unless the pumps are running full speed. The pumps keep running after after the fire goes out. What are those pumps pumping?
Oh boy, you’d better not look at the cattle industry then.
Every rocket launch ever done in history doesn’t make even a blip on the graph for human-related carbon emissions.
I love that “drop in the bucket” justification. In the 1900’s car exhaust was a huge innovation because it did away with the mountains of horse shit produced by carriages.
If you read the article the hazard is the Aluminum Oxide could deplete the Ozone layer. So a disruption to a different ecological process rather than the Greenhouse effect.
Aluminum is a major element of the 5200 tons of stardust per year. Sadly found no numbers.
Who’s the best worst alt of Whistle Mafia Boing Boing? The rapist of Ukraine or the African swindler feudal lord?
You can criticise them for that while being glad they are a reliable astronaut transport, unlike Boeing. The world is not black and white.
I am glad of that, but this is what I responded to:
SpaceX is nailing it. I just hope that the future will remember the terrific work that Gwynne Shotwell and many others did while “someone else” where busy tossing money away.
Fair enough!
Well, this was actually fkning concerning. Ofk is not like other Company aren’t playing to launch thousand of satellites too. There should be a serious regulation and some heavy changes in the metal alloy used at very least. I’m sure that Trump already has a plan about it…
… ofk i’m fking kidding. Vote [everyone else] x president .
Type of metal doesn’t matter, it’s any particle that leftover CFCs from the 1970s can stick to and make it more likely for them to react and destroy ozone. The ozone hole is over Antarctica and changes size seasonally because high altitude ice clouds do the same thing, smoke from forest fires also does it.
So we’re starting to look at aluminum debris in the upper atmosphere, when are we going to look at carbon fibre debris? Or rocket fuel in the upper atmosphere? We dont know what any of that shit does. Im going to hazard a guess that it does nothing good.
If you were to light ten thousand Starlink satellites on fire in a bonfire on the ground people would put you in jail. When it happens in the upper atmosphere its called progress.
Completely stopping the launch of new satellites will simply not happen. The only realistic response is to face the problem and improve the technology.
Just like they’re doing with the climate catastrophe.
Reasoned, sensible change, carried out quickly and paid for by the companies responsible.
It practically regulates itself!
We need better politician.
Well, it did work for the ozone hole.
It should work for the current climate catastrophe and the aluminium thing too, if about 50% of the electorate, 90% of its representatives, and 99% of the people in charge of big companies weren’t mentally handicapped imbeciles, too (if we count being a psychopath as a mental handicap).
Alas, those were different times
That’s the problem with capitalism. They won’t improve the technology until we force them
and the way to force them is to stop all launches until they fix it
Rocket fuel? You mean that stuff that makes water?
Spacex uses methane
Falcon 9 uses kerosene.
Thanks!
At engine cut off and start up those big clouds coming out of the engines are propellant. The pumps need priming and they don’t ignite right away or stop immediately after cut off. And what do you think they mean when they say “venting”?
Remember when Elon wanted to do transpirational cooling? What do you think they were going to “sweat”?
I, uh, know some of those words?
Two “not stranded” astronauts becoming increasingly stranded. More at 6
Well, time for the emergency knotted rope I guess.
McGiver is still alive and he’s got star gates and intergalactic spaceships…and paperclips! Tons of 📎 🖇️📎🖇️ paperclips!
Y’know one of those “options” was not to send it after the leaks were discovered.
Then they were all like, “Pffft. It’s fiiine. Just go.”
Then they were up there all, “Okay, so, slight delay”
Then, “Okay well that’s borked, but don’t worry, it’s all being handled.”
Now it’s “Options, anyone? Yes, all of them.”
Why is NASA, a publicly funded science organization, fixing the mistakes of a for profit corporation?
Read the article.
Boeing might opt to cancel Starliner and leave NASA with just a single provider of crew transportation. That would be painful for both NASA and Boeing.
Because for goddamn reason we socialize the losses and privatize the profits
Those reasons being monopolies and greed and corruption and capitalism.
Because it’ll look bad for NASA if people are stranded in the ISS (plus, I assume they have to foot the bill for any resulting extra resupply missions).
Also, if I’m not mistaken, NASA authorised the launch, while knowing the craft was faulty and leaking and the company malignantly incompetent, so it’s partly their fault, too, or at least they were necessary accomplices.
They gave Boeing the contract despite their obvious lack of experience in the area. There should be a forensic accounting, including any decision maker’s finances, about this whole deal
The US Federal Government would be best served by ARMIES of independent accountants doing audits of all its business, and issuing CRIMINAL CHARGES for all fraud, graft, and corruption, wherever it’s found.
Make it scary to give favors for bribes.
“lack of experience in the area…”
Boeing dwarfs SpaceX in experience building spacecraft.
Mercury and Gemini spacecraft were both built by the McDonnell Corp. That company merged with the Douglas Aircraft company (which built the 3rd stage of the Saturn V rocket) becoming McDonnell Douglas in 1967, which merged into Boeing in 1997. Boeing itself co-manufactured the space shuttle orbiters with Rockwell.
On paper and judging from experience and history, if you were going to pick a single company to build a spacecraft, it would be them. Not some brand new company run by a space-obsessed software engineer.
Clearly Boeing has huge cultural issues and has for a while.
Just saying if you wanted to go off experience alone, they’re the best there is.
You’re right, I didn’t realize all the merging that had occurred.
But clearly that legacy is gone. IDK who to trust with big space projects these days; it isn’t Amazon, SpaceX, or Boeing.
What commercial programs are supposed to do is have multiple competing companies. NASA doesn’t want to rely on SpaceX or Boeing alone, or even NASA’s own rocket building programs.
What we’ve gotten is:
- NASA’s rocket building program is an overpriced/overschedule boondoggle
- Boeing needs to be taken out back and shot for the good of both space and atmospheric flight
- SpaceX is fine for getting to LEO and the ISS
- Russian Soyuz is a political land mine, and Russian manufacturing practices have gone to shit
- Nobody else is fully capable at the moment
There’s some up and commers around. Most will fail. Maybe one will work out and this will get back on track. It shouldn’t just be SpaceX.
A company doesn’t have experience. people have experience.
I can’t imagine that the current Boeing would have kept the spaceflight experts on staff while not being used, so I don’t imagine that they had any expertis when they began the project.Likewise neither did NASA, because neoliberal policy had gutted them for much the same reasons, and is why they are pursuing the commercial space program.
Because the knuckle heads that protest end up in the streets for things they cant ever change instead actual concrete problems they could change with pressure.
boeing should have all contracts cancelled and be broken up. every gov’t. official that OK’d the starliner and this mission should be fired and investigated.
Boeing is going to kill our astronauts. Enough of this.
The astronauts took off in that machine after the Boeing airplane fiascoes went mainstream. What was going through their heads? Why did they think this time would be OK when it’s that much riskier than ordinary plane flights?
I would love to hear their interviews after they return safely, somehow, in the future.
Not only that, but they kept finding leaks on the rocket leading up to launch
I’m not going to defend Boeing in any way, but is it a bit reductive to say their commercial plane parts have quality problems, therefore their NASA stuff will too?
Their space capsule and rocket tests had issues too
I imagine you don’t become an astronaut by being scared of potential failures.
A top option should also be removing the current Boeing board and C suite. What a debacle.
Your wish is granted.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/31/investing/boeings-losses-new-ceo/index.html
As announced earlier key board members are also resigning.
Have they rotated the deck chairs on the Titanic, or is this a meaningful change?
What a calamity. Which is ironically how the capsule that is stuck got named. The jokes just write themselves.
It seems to me like we should be at the point where there should just always be a backup plan so the people taking the real risks don’t have to sit around waiting for 8+ weeks as some people try to do best by them while others just try to cover their assess and pretend everything is ok because they are fucked if things aren’t ok and might be inclined to risk lives in the hopes they get the good outcome.
