After so many months of dithering, fumbling, and excuse-making, NASA finally announced it has a plan to bring back stranded astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore — next year. The two astronauts were originally supposed to return to Earth in mid-June, but because their spacecraft, Boeing’s new shuttle Starliner, experienced a malfunction, they are scheduled to return on the SpaceX Dragon in February.
Understandably, NASA has downplayed the embarrassing fact that the eight-day mission has expanded into more than eight months. They have also downplayed the other embarrassing fact that the aerospace juggernaut Boeing, which was awarded $1.6 billion more than SpaceX in their fixed-price contracts, utterly failed to produce a comparable product to Elon Musk’s much smaller upstart company.
Instead of hanging their heads in shame, NASA officials (Boeing’s officials were notably absent) kept a positive attitude at a recent press conference, proclaiming their commitment to safety. As NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stated, “A test flight by nature is neither safe nor routine. [Our decision] is a result of a commitment to safety.” Assistant NASA Administrator Ken Bowersox echoed this sentiment, adding, “Decisions like this are never easy, but I want to commend our NASA and Boeing teams for their thorough analysis, transparent discussions, and focus on safety during the Crew Flight Test.”
For their part, the astronauts have been unusually chipper about the whole debacle. In a news conference last month, both astronauts seemed unfazed by the delay and expressed confidence in their team. Then again,
