Boeing's Starliner Lands Successfully, but Without Its Astronauts on Board.
Boeing's Starliner Lands Successfully, but Without Its Astronauts on Board.
The troubled spacecraft conducted a “bull's-eye landing,” but NASA officials still say they made the right decision to leave its astronauts on the ISS out of an abundance of caution
What was supposed to be an eight-day stay at the ISS for the astronauts has now turned into eight months.
I mean, that's probably physically rough on you, but speaking from the standpoint of "only ~116 people have ever been able to be present on this station", that "this is probably something that they had to work towards for some time to get", and "the ISS is nearing end-of-life and any replacement has risks associated with it and will be a smaller structure", I don't know that eight months on the ISS is the worst thing that could happen to someone.
I don't expect you to have the answers, but is the ISS nearing end of life because of technology, or because of gravitational pull? If it's the latter, how feasible would it be to attach rockets and drag it further away?
https://www.planetary.org/articles/why-international-space-station-cant-operate-forever
The ISS has gone through multiple reboosts to gain altitude because there is a small amount of atmospheric drag in its orbit. That's not the limiting factor though.
The structure is aluminum. Aluminum accumulates fatigue damage every time it flexes. Every time the iss goes from sunlight to the earths shadow, there is significant thermal expansion/contraction. This fatigues the structure. The repeated docking maneuvers also stress the structure. Radiation and atomic oxygen also cause degredation. All those factors are relatively minor in any given year, but are always accumulating. The ISS is getting less safe and the risk of a structural failure is increasing.
On top of that all, a bunch of the systems on board were designed 30 years ago. There have been major changes in communications, power systems, etc. in the time since the modules were built. Even though new experiments are built all the time, they are still constrained by capabilities of the capsules they operate in. So there are also science advantages to moving to a newer platform.
It has little boosters that keep it in orbit. It's reaching end of life because of other reasons that I'm not sure of.
Here's another factor: The ISS is in a high inclination orbit that is excellent at overflying most of the US and Russia. Not so great as a base for deep space missions.
Both of these astronauts were multiple-mission space veterans before they left. They have space shuttle experience. Sunita has prior command experience on ISS. These two are basically the most veteran professionals that NASA has on the roster.
They have now been resupplied with clothing on a Progress module. I think it was like 45 days before that showed up.
They have both stated that they're happy for more time on orbit, and I'm mostly inclined to believe them.
Boeing killed John Barnett
Alternative headline: "Boeing uses autopilot to return company vehicle while leaving two employees trapped indefinitely."
A very concerning headline if you haven't been following current events.
This headline reads like an episode of The Twighlight Zone.
Did it land using a golden parachute? I heard Boeing was good at those...