• halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    They’re not. Whether they return on Starliner is the question. SpaceX can send a Dragon up to bring them back easily.

    • lemmeout@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      As far as the Starliner mission is considered, they are stranded. Dragon is the rescue mission.

      • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I mean, Soyuz is the emergency rescue plan. Usually 2 of them sit docked to the ISS at all times for just this purpose. But regardless, the Starliner is functional enough they could leave right now if they had to. They just aren’t stranded, NASA isn’t just like… lying.

        The Starliner has redundant systems and even with several thrusters offline it’s still within safe operating parameters. They’re keeping it docked because they want to figure out the problem, not because they need to figure out the problem.

        There isn’t a dragon capsule ready to go at the moment, but it doesn’t really matter, it shouldn’t be needed. Because as I said, nobody is stranded, at least not yet.

        • Flumpkin@slrpnk.net
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          3 months ago

          All this reads weird. Private spacecraft sucks, recent Boing corporate culture sucks, SpaceX sucks even more. But this is Boings first flight and it seems it’s a relatively minor problem so I’m curious why there is so much backlash. I guess it’s a mixture between general anger at Boing for mismanaging their expertise, fatigue about private aeronautics and maybe spaceX fanboys?

          Dunno. I’d imagine astronauts would kill for more time in space, part of this seems manufactured drama.

          • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I’m curious why there is so much backlash.

            I mean, there isn’t really the wrong amount of backlash, it just gets misreported as more serious than it is, and then everyone enjoys dog piling on someone they can blame. But to be clear, Boeing is indeed fucking up pretty bad right now pretty much all over over the place.

            And the truth is, Elon Musk sucks, probably more than ever. He’s becoming a worse human being by the minute. But SpaceX on the other hand, SpaceX has been doing great pretty much since they started. I understand being nervous about private space flight, the proposition is a bit of a gamble. But as much as Boeing is shitting the bed right and left, spaceX has been making up for it by nailing it pretty consistently.