The International Space Station will have unexpected long term visitors upon two astronauts finding themselves without safe travels home. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore took flight June 5, 2024 for a trip that was supposedly supposed to last eight days. However, after complications overtook them, they will not return until 2025.
The craft was launched by Boeing, taking up the name “Starliner.” Boeing is a private American multinational corporation and, because of this, the company is able to do things that NASA wouldn’t do for safety and legal reasons.
The spacecraft was launched after it was made clear that its systems weren’t running at full capacity. It was noticed that there were helium leakages, as well as problems with the thrusters. Boeing made the decision to continue with the test flight. However, as the spacecraft docked it was deemed unsafe for the astronauts to travel back within the shuttle.
“When it is a government program, they wouldn’t have launched it,” astronomy teacher Justin Smith said. “It’s a private company so they can continue to do what they want to do.”
Disregarding the rivalry between SpaceX and Boeing, Williams and Wilmore will make safe travels home upon the Dragon spacecraft launched by SpaceX after the Starliner returned home empty Sept. 6.
However crazy it may be to hear that astronauts are stuck in space in this day and age, space travel has always and will always be extremely risky until the foreseeable future. Despite this, test flights are extremely important to gaining more knowledge regarding space crafts and travels to space.
“Anytime you test something you have protocols for things that are slightly dangerous, mildly dangerous, very dangerous [and] mission critical,” Smith said.
It is up to the company launching space crafts to make the difficult decisions, and when a decision is made that risks the safety of the crew, it is up to them to fix it. That being said, it isn’t clear what Boeing’s intentions are in regards to safety management. Considering their past failures, this doesn’t add constructive implications to their company.
Being able to successfully launch a spacecraft is a feat in itself. The fact that Boeing was able to safely launch their spacecraft, as well as ensure their astronauts arrived safely should not be overlooked.
Before this launch, not many space crafts were able to dock at the International Space Station. Up to six vehicles can be docked at the international space station currently, so being able to add another holds great promise for space travel.
“For a long time the only rocket that was capable of going up there was the Soyuz system which is a Russian system launched out of Kazakhstan,” Smith said.
