Astronauts trapped in space by Boeing's
faulty Starliner are given horrifying
news about potential return to Earth
Daily Mail (UK),
by
Stacy Liberatore
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
8/7/2024 7:52:33 PM
NASA astronauts stranded due to Boeing's faulty Starliner received horrifying news on Wednesday about their return mission to Earth.
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have already been trapped on the International Space Station (ISS) for more than two months, may not come back to Earth until February 2025.
The US space agency revealed a contingency plan that would launch a two-person crew on SpaceX's Crew-9 mission in September, but still wouldn't bring the crew home until months later.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
Birddog 8/7/2024 8:06:51 PM (No. 1774448)
Elon Musk is gonna fly up there, aboard his own spacecraft, pull up and announce over the Radios..."Somebody here needing an Uber???"
75 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Robert D 8/7/2024 8:15:45 PM (No. 1774452)
I wonder what the going rate for a Spacex rescue of a Boeing spacecraft is?
56 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
vrb8m 8/7/2024 8:21:00 PM (No. 1774459)
Ground Control to Maj. Tom.
76 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Catherine 8/7/2024 8:35:37 PM (No. 1774470)
I don't understand the desire to go to these places and/or start a colony of some sort. You can't breathe the air. Where is the water. How will you grow food? I think it's all a waste of money.
78 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
slipstik 8/7/2024 8:37:25 PM (No. 1774472)
Human bodies in microgravity deteriorate at an alarming rate that worsens over time. These poor people were not prepared for this situation. They have been up there far too long already and the latest development is an unmitigated disaster which will stay with them for the rest of their lives, which may be shortening while I wrote this. There should be a rescue flight to get them back on earth as soon as possible. It should have been done already.
60 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
red1066 8/7/2024 9:12:51 PM (No. 1774486)
I get the feeling that this space craft was never fully ready to go, but they sent these people up there to try and change and stop the Boeing bashing in the media. Under the old NASA missions of the sixties and seventies, this spaceship would still be sitting on the ground undergoing testing.
33 people like this.
I blame NASA for this farce. They never should have allowed the launch of a space craft they knew was malfunctioning.
48 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Ketchuplover 8/7/2024 9:30:30 PM (No. 1774491)
Remember when "Obama told his NASA chief that the agency’s “foremost” goal was to improve relations with the Muslim world and make Muslims “feel good.”? (Western Journal 6/19/2018)
80 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Cherrybark 8/7/2024 9:35:15 PM (No. 1774498)
One of the qualification requirements was an autonomous flight to ISS, docking, and return to Earth. Boeing's Starliner passed this test flight. Unbelievably, the current onboard software no longer has the capability to make an autonomous flight to Earth. The software update process is technically challenging, and the upload will take many days. Astronaut pilots will have to be onboard if the Starliner is to return to Earth. Rumors say someone has to be onboard to initiate the undocking.
With apparently no clue how to fix the several failed steering rockets, Boeing continues to say everything will work out just fine. Wags have suggested the Boeing CEO and the Starliner Chief Engineer ride up in a SpaceX Dragon, climb into Starliner, push the "Undock" button and, maybe everything will work out just fine. The stranded astronauts can return in the Dragon.
26 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
PChristopher 8/7/2024 9:45:19 PM (No. 1774507)
Food? Air? Water? Why no mention of those minor little details?
34 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
joew9 8/7/2024 10:00:01 PM (No. 1774512)
This is completely embarrassing. There is no excuse for this incompetence. Bring our boys home.
24 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Highlander 8/7/2024 10:11:09 PM (No. 1774516)
My first thought was, those astronauts are marooned in space! A horrible way to go if no craft can rescue them!
15 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
FormerDem 8/7/2024 11:04:11 PM (No. 1774535)
SpaceX can do it, but let's pray for our astronauts anyway. Ave Maria, gratia plena...
23 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
ladydawgfan 8/7/2024 11:45:30 PM (No. 1774554)
Maybe they should dig one of the space shuttles out of retirement. They can link up to the space station, pick up the stranded crew members and bring them home. IMHO, the shuttle program should have never been abandoned.
23 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
stablemoney 8/8/2024 12:24:13 AM (No. 1774565)
Boeing needs to go back to hiring and firing based on merit. And get a CEO that believes in that.
49 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
janjan 8/8/2024 1:19:04 AM (No. 1774574)
I feel horrible for these astronauts. They had every right to expect to be returned on time. What happens when they run out of food?
20 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
mifla 8/8/2024 4:27:38 AM (No. 1774600)
I hope those two get along. Hate to be trapped in such a small space for months with someone I disliked.
13 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
privateer 8/8/2024 6:37:34 AM (No. 1774652)
I always thought that obama had promised someone that infidels would never again set foot on the moon god's home. Hence, the retasking, and ultimate degradation of NASA.
11 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
NancyD 8/8/2024 7:14:34 AM (No. 1774663)
I wonder about the conditions inside the capsule. The food, waste, water, the bodies of the astronauts and their minds. What happens if one dies? This is awful.
15 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 8/8/2024 7:16:29 AM (No. 1774664)
If the Boeing CEO and the President of their Space Division were Japanese they would commit Seppuku over this. There's no excuse for such a failure in planning and logistics. How much of their failure was the result of "DEI" we may never know, but one thing is for sure, the timing is highly suspicious. I would say it must have something to do with Boeing's fixation with outsourcing Engineering jobs with India, but all space related activities used to require a Secret Classification for American citizens only, although during Obama's corrosive pResidency the standards have no doubt been greatly reduced in order to spread our secrets around the world. I'm glad I sold my Boeing stock before all these terrible decisions were made by their infamous CEO.
24 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
bpl40 8/8/2024 7:17:43 AM (No. 1774666)
Since DEI superseded quality and safety as primary performance measurement criteria for management staff, it has been strictly downhill for Boeing - 737-800, Starliner you name it.
20 people like this.
One of the huge problems with all of this is that Starliner doesn’t have the autonomous re-entry software installed, another is there is no other docking port that SpaceX can use while Starliner is docked there.
9 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
readtheBook 8/8/2024 7:33:55 AM (No. 1774676)
Nothing is impossible with God. Please pray for a miracle for these people. I don't know the answer, but God can do anything. The Name "Jesus" means Jehovah, the Self Existent One, saves, delivers, makes open wide and free. I pray in Jesus' Name that God will have mercy on these poor souls and bring them safely back to earth. If this is not His will I KNOW it is His will that these people experience His supernatural Presence and peace despite their circumstance. I pray they will call upon Jesus and receive His peace and perfect will and salvation regardless of their condition. Job said even if He slays me, yet will I trust Him. There is the resurrection of the dead and life eternal in Christ. Please LORD have mercy on their poor souls.
33 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
Strike3 8/8/2024 7:42:50 AM (No. 1774680)
The return on investment in sending humans into space is not there, it's all done to propagate a dead science that ends at the planet Pluto because the technology to go beyond to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, will not be developed in our lifetimes but we have the obligation to pay for it anyway. None of our other planets are habitable and NASA is a huge money pit. Sure, we now have expanded military and spying capabilities but the benefit to mankind and high resolution pictures of Saturn simply is not worth the expense. Planet Earth will be dead and gone by our own stupidity long before that time.
13 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
FJB 8/8/2024 7:46:48 AM (No. 1774683)
What are those poor guys going to do for supplies all that time?
14 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 8/8/2024 8:34:17 AM (No. 1774723)
I would imagine that the guys might start feeling a bit claustrophobic after this news.
9 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
lynngirl122 8/8/2024 8:34:23 AM (No. 1774724)
I would just press the Detonate button get it over with.
8 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
Zumkopf 8/8/2024 9:21:20 AM (No. 1774748)
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I’m old enough to remember “if it ain’t Boeing I ain’t going“
10 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
Muguy 8/8/2024 9:29:03 AM (No. 1774757)
Are there other ports for docking available if a SpaceX rescue mission were to dock with the ISS?
This reminds me of a cult classic 1969 movie called "Marooned" with an all-star cast of Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, James Franciscus, Gene Hackman, Lee Grant and a young Mariette Hartley where a rescue mission arrived helped by a Russian Cosmonaut. I always wondered if the oxygen hose from the Russian to the Americans was going to be compatible-- this was well before the VHS/Beta conflicts.
The story this time is that the Starlink capsule has problems with leaks and rockets may be potentially unreliable which challenge its safe return to Earth with the Astronauts. I do hope plans to re-supply the ISS are in the works in the mean time since the current mission was not expecting two extra persons.
8 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
bighambone 8/8/2024 10:05:58 AM (No. 1774782)
Maybe the Russians can get them down?
7 people like this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
broken01 8/8/2024 10:07:12 AM (No. 1774783)
Boeing used to be great what happened. Oh nevermind.
8 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
Zigrid 8/8/2024 10:29:39 AM (No. 1774801)
This is unacceptable ...what is going on with our space program...is it suffering from DEI hires who can't seem to have the American know how...WE used to have....whether it's the space program...or the flights in our country aboard commercial airlines....something has chanced since obama/biden/harris took over the government.....
8 people like this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
stuBdoc 8/8/2024 10:30:31 AM (No. 1774803)
To multiple commenters, they are not stuck on the capsule, they are on the ISS. Still a terrible predicament, but not nearly as claustrophobic. Absolutely inexcusable on Boeing's part, and NASA for sending them despite concerns. There must be a way to jettison the damaged capsule without reentering it, and if not, that's a very serious design flaw.
15 people like this.
Reply 34 - Posted by:
BrightonCO 8/8/2024 10:39:10 AM (No. 1774811)
Everybody! Do a Google search on 'Nigerian Astronaut' and have a good grin. It might lead to a gofundme!
4 people like this.
Reply 35 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/8/2024 10:56:31 AM (No. 1774822)
In the 60s I recall that Seattle's economy would sink like a stone if Boeing failed to get a contract.
8 people like this.
Reply 36 - Posted by:
Strike3 8/8/2024 11:59:37 AM (No. 1774853)
I refuse to ever use google but Duck Duck Go also found this one. Why are there so many Doctors in Nigeria? Do they think that just because a doctor is asking you for money or wanting to send you money if only you send him the processing fee makes him sound credible? Even if he doesn't speak English very well? Why do so many of their doctors work at banks?
4 people like this.
Reply 37 - Posted by:
Hazymac 8/8/2024 12:11:48 PM (No. 1774860)
No kidding, #3.
3 people like this.
Reply 38 - Posted by:
mc squared 8/8/2024 12:54:37 PM (No. 1774880)
25 years ago this would be 24/7 news. Astronauts Stranded. Other than here it's unknown to most people.
4 people like this.
Reply 39 - Posted by:
jimincalif 8/8/2024 1:02:35 PM (No. 1774888)
David Bowie predicted this in 1969:
For here am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do
5 people like this.
Reply 40 - Posted by:
snapper451 8/8/2024 2:11:21 PM (No. 1774914)
Sadly, the demented president Biden appointed former FL (D) Senator Bill Nelson as the head of NASA. Nelson is barely brighter than Biden, at his peak, and could have gone to the Olympics and won gold in the village idiot competition. Hopefully January 20 will be Nelson’s last day.
4 people like this.
Reply 41 - Posted by:
Geoman 8/8/2024 5:22:09 PM (No. 1774972)
February 2025. By then we'll have a new president. If Kamala wins, the astronauts might rather stay in the space station, as Kamala would likely reach out to her Russian communist pals, our country's new allies, and pay them to bring our astronauts back home. Anything to further degrade our country.
2 people like this.
Reply 42 - Posted by:
Redwing57 8/8/2024 6:43:22 PM (No. 1775004)
This proves NASA learned NOTHING from the Challenger disaster. The arrogance is beyond comprehension. They launched with "acceptable risks", they KNEW there were "minor" helium leaks in the thruster system. And yet they launched anyway!
NASA needs an overhaul from top to bottom. They did it after the Apollo 1 fire. They may have done it after Challenger, but not sure. And clearly they've drifted back into the same unchecked management hubris that says, "How long do we have to wait? Push the button!".
1 person likes this.
Reply 43 - Posted by:
rochow 8/8/2024 10:32:48 PM (No. 1775062)
It's a boing, I ain't going!
1 person likes this.
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