Posted on 04/04/2025 8:25:10 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Wilmore gave a near minute-by-minute retelling of what went through his mind when four thrusters on the Boeing-made spacecraft failed while he and Williams were attempting to dock at the International Space Station.
The near-catastrophic crisis caused Wilmore to lose full control of the plagued capsule, leaving the seasoned astronauts floating in the vast void of space until NASA’s mission control came to their rescue.
“I don’t know that we can come back to Earth at that point,” Wilmore, 62, recalled in an interview with Ars Technica.
Wilmore explained that flight regulations typically call for malfunctioned ships to abort docking – even within close range to the ISS – and return to Earth. But NASA waived that mandate, he said.
Panic eventually began to set in as the pair attempted to direct the defective ship toward the ISS.
The space explorer said he had shared concerns about the capsule’s thrusters – which are essential for docking – with Boeing in the months prior to takeoff after an uncrewed flight test to the space station experienced similar malfunctions.
Mission control eventually instructed Wilmore to relinquish all remaining control of the capsule to allow NASA to reset the thrusters – a directive he said “was not easy to do.”
The remote override restored two of the failed thrusters, giving the ship just enough control to safely dock at the space station.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
DEI needs to DIE before more people DIE because of DEI!!!!!
I thought astronauts had an age cut-off? 62 years old.
So NASA deliberately put the ISS in danger, rather than doing the correct thing.
Got it.
This is way worse than what I had heard.
People need to be fired and maybe even prosecuted.
Any bets on what the QUALITY of the Boeing F-47 will be?
It’s them. Those DEAD EYES.
Thank God America had Elon Musk and Space X to bail our butts out.
A couple of thoughts, I imagine the butt cheeks on the astronauts and a lot of NASA engineers were clinched so tightly you couldn’t slide a quarter between them.
Seriously, how much pressure do you think the Biden Administration put on NASA to go ahead with the launch despite all the warnings because they didn’t want any positive press being directed to Elon Musk and SpaceX.
We know from the Astronauts themselves and Elon Musk, the Biden Administration denied offers of help from SpaceX to rescue the Astronauts because the rescue would have happened before the election and potentially help Trump.
That realization had to be profoundly devastating.
A feeling very few human beings have ever experienced.
Lesser men would have frozen up , paralyzed and overwhelmed by the most likely outcome laid out before them.
There shows another advantage of sending these Astronauts up in teams. Somebody like him, a highly trained professional , does not want to be the weak link, the one who falls apart and lets his team down.
He was only 61 when he went up.
Did NASA do that or was NASA put under extreme pressure from the Biden Administration to go ahead with the launch regardless of the warnings and potential risks, we know the Biden Administration refused offers of help from SpaceX so that Elon Musk would get no credit for a rescue before the election.
They got it functioning to the point of control and docked it and kept them alive. That is at the top of the hierarchy of procedures.
All they did was take the Apollo drawings and update them.
They could not even get that right...
My thought precisely.
NASA hasn’t come back from 8 years of Muslim outreach
I’ve stopped flying years ago.
Is Mrs. Williams a muslim, by any chance? Asking for a friend.
"The remote override restored two of the failed thrusters, giving the ship just enough control to safely dock at the space station....And from that moment on, Boeing and the Enemedia began gaslighting the American taxpayers about what had happened, was happening, and was going to happen to the two astronauts.
"Wilmore, on the other hand, knew that their problems had only just begun and would likely need another way home."
3 hour tour!
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.