Damn. Going from 8 days to almost 8 months must be pretty shitty news for the astronauts. I get that it’s all defined as a test and these things can happen, but it’s not a good look for Boeing at all.
Good thing for Boeing that their civil aviation branch is above suspicion, otherwise it would be very bad. But as long as they look very serious here, I'm sure they'll continue to deserve all that public money for their big projects, which is obviously great for everyone!
/s
I'm sure they'll continue to deserve all that public money for their big projects, which is obviously great for everyone! /s
Not sure how the current problems are handled, but the Starliner development was a fixed-cost rather than cost-plus contract for once. So at least Boeing ate massive losses on that one.
Boeing: It's very important to remember they are absolutely not stranded, they could walk home whenever they want they're just having too much fun on the leaky ISS and don't want to.
News from yesterday media isn't talking about is NASA confirmed Starliner is likely fine to fly home. They did 3 hot fire simulations of a return mission. All thrusters passed. Even worked better than during approach. Meaning NASA's theory about what Boeing fucked up seems to have been corrected.
But the media wants clicks. Jumped straight to talking about worst case scenario of our around 5 possible options covered yesterday.
Microgravity is horrible for the human body. Bones lose density, the heart enlarges, and all muscles atrophy. It takes months or years to recover from prolonged microgravity, they were supposed to be up there for like a week, where none of that is an issue.
I’m sure if they really wanted to come down, nasa would put them on a different capsule and get them down, but then that just means 2 other people, who’ve been up there longer than them, have to stay in microgravity for even longer than they planned.
They should be good. Cygnus capsule arrived on Tuesday. Was a regularly scheduled resupply. They are using supplies faster. But there is always safety stock.
That's great! Everyone was joking about the doors falling off of Starliner, but I still find it unbelievable that these poor people are actually stuck for 8 months.
The average stay on the iss is 6 months, with the longest being nearly a year. They know how to deal with the effects of these things, so it's not going to be a huge problem.
That's good, so honestly it's just trying to stay sane on what was originally a short week or so trip, here's hoping they didn't have any plans for the holidays.