According to recent reports, NASA will rely on Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, to fly home the two astronauts who have been stranded in space since the beginning of June.
The astronauts became stuck on the International Space Station when their Boeing Starliner Aircraft experienced several malfunctions. In a devastating blow to Boeing and NASA, they will have to turn to SpaceX’s innovation.
After weeks of debate toward the best option to safely return the astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will return to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon craft instead of the embattled Boeing Starliner. The move further jeopardizes Boeing’s reputation, as the company has endured other notable controversies over the past year.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a recent press briefing, “Spaceflight is risky — even at its safest and even at its most routine — and a test flight, by nature, is neither safe nor routine, and so the decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring the Boeing Starliner home uncrewed is a result of a commitment to safety.”
As the debate raged over which craft to bring the astronauts home on, some NASA engineers noted that the fact that the Starliner is even being questioned should automatically rule it out. During a press conference on the matter, NASA’s Ken Bowersox said, “We could take either path, and reasonable people could pick either path.”
NASA’s program manager for commercial crew, Steve Stich, recently said, “In the last few weeks, we have decided to make sure we have that capability there, as our community, I would say, got more and more uncomfortable.” At the time, Stich explained that a conclusion had not yet been reached regarding what craft they would fly Wilmore and Williams home on. “We didn’t poll in a way that led to a conclusion,” he said. “We heard from a lot of folks that had concerns, and the decision was not clear,” Bowersox said.
Leave a Reply