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this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024
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But don't worry though, NASA says the astronauts are "not stranded".
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.
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.
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 then 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 hardware and understand better why some thrusters failed.
On the other hand, this is still a huge waste of money and it's one more example of Boeing bungling things. So I'm not saying this is a great situation, just that the astronauts are not actually "stranded".
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.
Boeing doesn’t listen to their engineers, but we’re supposed to listen to their marketing department.
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 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?
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.
Thanks! Already caught up a bit on Scott Manley, but I have to check out Tim Dodd too. His RFA / ISAR video is awesome. It seems a lot of new rocket and spacecraft have materialized in the last few years.