Boeing’s latest potential scandal is out of this world - literally.
Its Starliner spacecraft - which carried two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) last week - is unable to undock after several faults were found on the ship.
Teams have discovered five different leaks in the craft’s propulsion system which would navigate the craft through space as it returns to Earth.
The astronauts were set to return on June 14, but that has been delayed until June 22 while Boeing and NASA scramble to fix issues, leaving the astronauts stranded until then.
Now, experts have said that NASA could be forced to launch a rescue mission that would be a highly embarrassing blow for the embattled Boeing which is dealing with spate of issues plaguing its commercial jets.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13526637/Boeings-scandal-NASA-astronaut-ISS.html
Astronaut Butch has flown on the STS and the Soviet-era barely-orbital Soyuz, as well as the Starliner, and spent a decent amount of time on the ISS. Given his history of test pilot work and inherently risky space travel, I doubt that he'd balk at the risk of attempting reentry in this latest slapdash slipshod POS from Boeing, but NASA has a standing contingency plan for having SpaceX send a craft up with extra supplies and/or bringing stranded people home.
Since there's no way to fix these Starliner problems and helium loss may wind up turning it into a dead hulk, best guess is, they'll be riding home in the SpaceX capsule. If it were just a matter of using some duct tape and leaving earlier to maximize safety, they'd already be back on Earth.