At last Boeing and NASA threw in the towel and agreed to have SpaceX bring back the two stranded astronauts who were only supposed to be aboard the Int’l. Space station for 8 days. As it is, they’re still going to be there a total of 8 months according to BBC News.
SpaceX will launch a crew capsule there this coming September with only 2 of the planned astronauts aboard instead of 4. Then, when their mission is complete in February, they and the 2 stranded astronauts will return together in the SpaceX capsule.
When the NASA contracts were handed out to Boeing and SpaceX for transporting astronauts to and from the Space Station, Boeing received $4.2 billion while SpaceX got $2.6 billion. Since then, SpaceX has completed nine crewed missions for NASA while Boeing has yet to finish one. It’s no wonder NASA has waited so long hoping Boeing would fix their problems, as this must be very embarrassing for them. But it became obvious that a safe return, even in rocketry terms, wasn’t going to happen for the stranded astronauts in that defective Boeing capsule.
Boeing’s been getting a lot of bad press lately for aircraft engine problems when they don’t make the engines and maintenance problems that are the responsibility of those who bought the aircraft. But this is on them. They sent two people into space apparently as a test of the space capsule. This was the very first crewed mission and the previous tests also suffered thruster problems, as this one does. They nearly got them killed and are unable after months of trying, to bring them back.
SpaceX leads the world in rocketry. Reusable first stages that land on floating bullseyes are unparalleled, they’ve built the largest, most powerful and most reliable engines yet, and it looks like their Starship will be landing on the Moon before much longer. Time for NASA to put the money where it’s best used.