Staff Reports
Boeing’s Starliner adventure is starting to resemble a sci-fi horror film—except the only thing getting launched into space is sheer incompetence. NASA and Boeing have failed to get their act together yet again, leaving two astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, parked at the International Space Station (ISS) for far too long, like they took a wrong turn in an intergalactic IKEA. One would think that after decades of space exploration, they could manage a space ride home with a little more finesse.
The situation has turned into a tense game of chronic parking shortages. The ISS has docking ports that are hotter real estate than beachfront property in Malibu, and right now, Starliner is holding onto a prime spot that’s about to be snatched up by SpaceX’s Crew Dragon for the Crew-9 mission. Scheduled for August 18, this capsule’s arrival is about as imminent as Congress taking a day off from discussing spending. Starliner has to clear out, even if it means leaving its astronauts behind, and all indicators suggest that it might just be a one-way trip to the scrap heap.
Did NASA Just Admit That Boeing's Starliner Is Doomed? https://t.co/UWJ6t0e7Jo
— Nielo (@Nielo100) August 5, 2024
The stakes couldn’t be higher. NASA is publicly contemplating the gut-wrenching option of delaying the Crew-9 mission to September 24. This would be the aviation equivalent of a “Whoops, our bad” while the flight crews twiddle their thumbs in the cockpit. If Starliner can’t make the grade for a proper return to Earth, it looks like those astronauts are destined for a jaunt back via Crew Dragon—where they’ll likely have some strong words for Boeing about the long wait.
Unsurprisingly, there’s chatter about glitches behind the scenes. NASA’s internal discussions have been bubbling with suggestions that Starliner is, in not-so-technical terms, a hot mess. Reports indicate that the flight software aboard simply can’t handle a proper undock and atmospheric entry. One can almost hear the engineers back at Boeing shrugging their shoulders in disbelief—how did we faceplant this badly? Rumor has it that updating the software could take weeks longer, as if Boeing engineers found themselves lost in the labyrinthine world of coding.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the writing on the wall. With delays piling up like a bad stack of pancakes, everyone is bracing for the inevitable announcement: Starliner is effectively toast. And as if this news could get worse, the impending decision adds a new level of suspense and tension that would make a nail-biting thriller less gripping. Perfectly timed for a dramatic exit—is Boeing’s space saga slipping from innovative triumph to an unmitigated disaster? This will surely leave the taxpayers wondering, “Is this really what our money is being spent on?”
In the end, it’s not just about astronauts’ safety or a missed launch window; it’s a glaring testament to the bureaucratic missteps and delays that have plagued this joint NASA-Boeing venture. Fellow Americans deserve better than this sloppy, drawn-out saga, and when the dust settles, it’s safe to say that heads will roll—or at least they should. The only certainty here is that Starliner has made the true leap into the void—one away from competition and into a realm of space failure that is both embarrassing and entirely avoidable.
