NASA said Thursday it will decide this weekend whether Boeing’s new capsule is safe enough to return two astronauts from the International Space Station, where they’ve been waiting since June.
Administrator Bill Nelson and other top officials will meet Saturday. An announcement is expected from Houston once the meeting ends.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner on June 5. The test flight quickly encountered thruster failures and helium leaks so serious that NASA kept the capsule parked at the station as engineers debated what to do.
SpaceX could retrieve the astronauts, but that would keep them up there until next February. They were supposed to return after a week or so at the station.
They won’t. I think that’s why this is happening on a Saturday- stock markets are closed so it won’t instantly tank Boeing’s stock price.
Look back at the last few space disasters that killed people- Challenger and Columbia. In both cases it was the same- someone in NASA tried to sound the alarm but they didn’t listen because of organizational culture or whatever. Thus the people at the top of NASA could say with a straight face ‘we didn’t know, we will change culture to listen to the little guy who thinks there’s a problem’. And so, we all forgave them for making us watch heroes die on live TV.
This is different. The alarm has been sounded and it’s been sounding for months. Everyone at all levels of NASA, Boeing, and for that matter the general public know that Starliner has a very serious thruster problem. There’s no excuses here, no ‘promise to fix culture’ or new procedure that could forgive an accident. If Butch and Suni blow up on live TV there’ll be no excuses anyone for anyone to make because the decision is being made with everyone fully informed. The public at large will know it happened because NASA trusted ‘don’t bolt the doors on Boeing’ with the lives of American heroes. The American people will demand that heads roll at both NASA and Boeing and it may well happen too. We don’t like watching real heroes die on live TV.
So look at Starliner right now. The thrusters have problems that make them overheat and shut off when commanded to fire and, as of when I last checked, Boeing isn’t even sure what’s wrong.
Point is- if Starliner crashes with Americans on board, NASA won’t just be burning credibility. They’ll be burning themselves, Boeing, and the entire manned space program.
So I predict the flight readiness review before the press conference is just a formality, that the decision has already been made to bring our people back on Crew Dragon. And I’m sure someone from Boeing will be all thumbs up over an ‘overabundance of caution’.