patrick.net

Lost In Space...

"When astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore left Earth for International Space Station nearly three months ago, they ditched their bags for a key piece of equipment. Helming the inaugural crewed flight test of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, they departed without their own toiletries and other personal comforts - expecting to return to Earth within a week or so.

They’ve now been on the space station more than 11 weeks, however, and NASA announced Saturday that they would remain there through early 2025."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/boeing-starliner-astronauts-now-space-103217983.html

WookieMan says

They shouldn't be in space

Nobody should be in space. Missions can be performed more cheaply and more safely with robots.

WookieMan says

It's a huge undertaking to build a plane that flies 1,000 times daily and safely. Way more than a car. I don't think it's smart to do planes AND space travel. Boeing needs to pick their pony and get back to excelling at planes. Government doesn't help though dangling the corruption carrot in front of the pony with grants.

This is how everything will get killed. Government + $$ + Greed.

We don't follow the science. No, we follow the $$.

Boeing employees ‘humiliated’ that upstart rival SpaceX will rescue astronauts stuck in space: ‘It’s shameful’

https://nypost.com/2024/08/25/us-news/boeing-employees-humiliated-that-spacex-will-save-astronauts-stuck-in-space/

WookieMan says

I have defended Boeing in the past. They shouldn't be in space in my opinion. But, is the docking part 100% on Boeing? I admittedly have not read too much into this specific story. I'm fine with launching satellites into orbit, but I think the space station is a waste of time at this point. Maybe it's time to just let it go. Have they not had a couple decades to study? It's low earth orbit anyway. There can't be anything else to discover unless we're sending idiots up there.

Two problems:

1: Because the Shitliners software was written in Mumbai and is full of errors (same reason a previous Shitliner test launch failed to reach orbit), and there's a thruster issue, they may not be able to 'drive it out of the parking lot'. And you can't put somebody on board to fly it manually or they'll stand a chance of dying to save a MIC Boondoggle.

2. The problem with the Space Station is they never have ENOUGH people onboard to do any serious R&D. It takes 3-4 F/T people to maintain the thing in space. There needs to be at least 6-7 people on it F/T to get anything done.

2b. The #1 thing we should be doing in LEO with the space station is testing Artificial Gravity and Engineering to support it. For every tenth of a G, it's believed a lot of long term physical issues are mitigated. Getting this done is key to any kind of Mars or long term Moon mission.

2c. The #2 and #3 reasons is to produce hydroponic food in quantity and deal with mold issues. The ISS (and all long term LEO occupied vehicles) stinks to high heaven from it.