Posted on 06/20/2024 6:01:58 AM PDT by Red Badger
Two astronauts will be stuck on the International Space Station for at least another week as experts at NASA and Boeing struggle to fix their spacecraft.
Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived on the ISS on June 6 after a successful Boeing Starliner launch. Expected to only stay a week, the two will not be arriving on Earth before June 26, NASA and Boeing officials said in a Tuesday press conference.
The Boeing Starliner is facing several mechanical problems. En route to the station, the crew reported problems with five thrusters and four helium leaks. A fifth helium leak has since cropped up. Crews are working to make sure its safe before the astronauts are put back on and return home.
This delay comes after NASA and Boeing crews announced June 22 as their return date.
“We want to give our teams a little bit more time to look at the data, do some analysis, and make sure we’re really ready to come home,” Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, said on Tuesday.
Stich said they do not see a scenario “where Starliner is not going to be able to bring Butch and Suni home.”
Crews will attempt to land in the White Sands area of New Mexico next week. If the crew cannot make the June 26 landing, the next “prime opportunity” will be on July 2, .
Dana Weigel, manager of NASA’s International Space Station Program, said the crew is feeling positive.
“They love Starliner, they love being in the vehicle, they love being on ISS,” Weigel said on Tuesday. “I think, you know, if you ask Butch and Suni, they might want to stay for a long period of time.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sg.news.yahoo.com ...
I think it all falls back to the liberal philosophy of “feelings and emotions” vs common sense.
They can just parachute down. I saw it in Halo Masterchief.
It’s certainly a pervasive, institutional mindset even outside outside of the institutions.
Truth is whatever supports, agrees with, and advances an agenda. Whoever stands in conflict is automatically ignored, shunned, or openly mocked. And if those methods don’t succeed, stronger tactics are to be applied.
The gun is the established order [of anything] and few want to trigger it. Otherwise there’d be a mob waiting, the “democracy” that the regime is determined to protect.
I can’t resist an anecdote.
I had been in a corporate setting for about five years and was beginning to master my one little corner of the operation.
One day a senior executive came to visit us from headquarters. They called us into a conference room and explained what they are about to announce in a press conference.
They cited several statistics to support their about to be public claims.
One of those statistics was based on bad data which proved they did not understand our operation—at all.
I had the correct data at my fingertips. I started to raise my hand to correct the senior executive and my boss gave me a ferocious dirty look and silently mouthed “hand down now”.
The bad statistic was given to the media and they dutifully printed it.
My boss later took me aside and told me that communications with senior management must go through her and her bosses—zero exceptions.
I asked her why the big boss had such bad data.
Her explanation: “If the truth would help us we would share it.”
Yikes.
NASA is a leftist jobs program. If they want them back alive have SpaceX retrieve them in one of their craft. The Boeing machine is akin to doomed Apollo 1, it doesn’t ring true.
Why Does SpaceX Use 33 Engines While NASA Used Just 5?
The race to the moon is back on, but why does SpaceX’s Starship & super heavy booster need 33 engines when NASA’s Saturn V rocket, which went to the moon six times 55 years ago only needed five. We look at what has changed since then and why many smaller engines and all the extra complexity that comes with them seem to be the way forward for the modern space industry.
Written, Researched, and Presented by Paul Shillito - The Curious Droid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okK7oSTe2EQ
I completely concur with all of you on this.
It is shameful, NASA has become part of the climate change propaganda arm of the Left.
I fully admit, there was a time when I thought we NEEDED NASA to do these things which were too big and expensive for private companies, and I felt that way right up to the end of the shuttle program.
I see the error of my ways. It CAN be done by a private company, and better, because they have financial skin in the game, where NASA did not.
I always compare the Wright Brothers to Samuel Langley. Langley got tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars given to him to produce a flyable plane, and failed miserably.
The Wright Brothers used under a thousand dollars of their own money to successfully produce a flying machine.
“ Where is the uncompromising standards of quality and execution in”
In everything ….
In the USA, DEI seems to be more important
Our government, most of all, has become too bloated and self-protective to do anything useful. Real space exploration in the future will come from private enterprises and individuals. The major problem will come from government interference, regulations, and taxation on the efforts.
To build from the Asimov model, we have become Trantor.
That, FRiend, is an excellent analysis and analogy.
Ack. Not surprising at all. Everyday experience suggests that it is a more common scenario than speaking and utilizing the truth.
It’s the psychological analog to the MIC. If there weren’t a war on truth, people would be out of a job!
NASA couldn’t build those F1 engines again, the design is there but the knowledge is dead and buried. Those engines required specific techniques in welding and baffles that died with the builders in the 1960’s.
There is a great series out there called Moon Machines, it goes over how they build everything in the Apollo program from the engines, to the suits to the computers.
“...let’s get Mikey!”
-PJ
You each addressed both sides of my sarcasm.
Agreed with each.
WILL THEY HAVE TO SEND MUSK VEHICLES TO THE RESCUE????
That would be a hoot if they did!...............
Raptor engines are very well designed, Starship is much bigger than the Saturn five hence the large amount of engines needed. It is true none the less that the F1 Engine was a one of a kind. NASA should just scrap Starliner.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.