Posted on 06/24/2024 7:41:11 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
Editor's note: NASA announced on Friday that Starliner's troubleshooting has been extended for a third time, meaning that the astronauts will stay aboard the International Space Station indefinitely until some time in July.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were originally scheduled to return to Earth on June 13 after a week on the ISS, but their stay has been extended for a third time due to the ongoing issues.
...Boeing's Starliner capsule successfully blasted off...on June 5. But during the 25-hour flight, engineers discovered five separate helium leaks to the spacecraft's thruster system.
...to give engineers time to troubleshoot the faults, NASA has announced it will push back the perilous return flight, extending the crew's stay on the space station to at least three weeks.
"We've learned that our helium system is not performing as designed," Mark Nappi, Boeing's Starliner program manager, said at a news conference on June 18. "Albeit manageable, it's still not working like we designed it. So we've got to go figure that out."
...NASA and Boeing engineers assess the vital hardware issues aboard the vessel, including five helium leaks to the system that pressurizes the spacecraft's propulsion system, and five thruster failures to its reaction-control system.
After powering the thrusters up on June 15, engineers found that most of these issues appeared to be at least partially resolved, but their exact causes remain unknown. However, the Harmony module's limited fuel means Starliner can only stay docked for 45 days, so the window for a safe return flight is narrowing.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
mer·i·toc·ra·cy
/ˌmerəˈtäkrəsē/
noun
government or the holding of power by people selected on the basis of their ability.
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Boeing is reaping the whirlwind for shelving the word in the name of wokeness.
Good chance, that is exactly the problem.
Only if they die from embarrassment from having to return on a Russian spacecraft.
....and who at Boeing will be disciplined for these screw-ups?
They better not track this back to Boeing substandard hiring practices and below industry standards on inert gas welding for space craft fuel tanks or an illegal that is traced back to it.
Sometimes success needs someone that knows what they are doing.
Here comes Musk to save the day.
We haven't "lost the tech". We have original equipment sitting in museums. But why would you even want to recreate a 1960's spacecraft? And we were putting men in orbit in the early-to-mid 1960's; it's much easier than going to the moon.
Just because McDonnell-Douglas could build Gemini in 1964 and get to work (most of the time) and North American Rockwell could build Apollo in 1967+ and (eventually) get to work really well, it doesn't follow that Boeing can build Starliner in 2024 and get it to work well on its third flight (first crewed flight).
Engineering doesn't work that way. Just because someone did it well 30 years ago doesn't mean anyone can do it well today.
And if the "anyone" institutionalizes enough bean-counters in senior positions, who don't value or understand engineering and think of engineers as interchangeable cost-centers, well, they're that much further from doing it well today.
Boeing doesn’t make that call, NASA does.
Waiting for nasa to say aw heck, let’s bring it home anyway.
(Like it did with the columbia disaster)
Boeing isn’t going.
It’s gone.
I don't think Russia is going to want to help us.
The Biden Team will announce that dead astronauts stranded in space are just in an orbital hold.
DEI marvel in charge of the Boeing space and security program
https://www.boeing.com/company/bios/ted-colbert
Thank you for being a voice of sanity here.
Also, the Van Allen radiation belts aren’t a “mantra”, as some folks seem to believe ... nor are they an unavoidable barrier as some would have us believe in spite of facts to the contrary. They are a region of near-Earth space best avoided by launching on a high-inclination orbit.
The astronauts may be imprisoned but I'm sure the U.S. government has another international arms dealer they can trade for them like they did for the tranny/lesbian Women's Basketball player.
Interesting CV.
At no time in his illustrious career was he ever a hands-on engineer.
Funny how in 1969 we were able to achieve a crewed landing on the moon and bring them back.
Now 55 years later we can’t even get these people home from the ISS orbiting the earth.
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