Today’s NASA Press briefing



6 Comments

  1. koos_die_doos on

    Highlights:
    – Confirmed that they’re looking at a Crew Dragon with two astronauts to allow Butch and Suni to return on it.
    – If Butch and Suni returns on Crew Dragon, it won’t be until Feb 2025.
    – Internal differences within NASA employees on if Starliner is safe or not.
    – Decision is pending mid August on if they’re returning on Starliner.
    – Starliner is unable to perform an uncrewed undocking, and will require changes to the software. The software is present, but parameters are set up in such a way that a crew member takes over in case an error occurs.
    – Explicitly mentioned that Starliner is still the preferred option for Butch and Suni to return.

    Edit: I’d like to urge anyone that is interested beyond the highlights to listen to the whole thing, they go into a lot of detail that people don’t see in news articles.

  2. I wish they spoke more directly to the issues and open, honest and forth coming. Their no reason to act like a politician.

  3. Inevitable_Bunch5874 on

    They just can’t admit they wasted billions of taxpayer dollars and Starliner is 100% a failure.

    NASA has too many Boeing bois inside. This why nepotism is not just bad, but dangerous, kids.

  4. They make references to uphill/downhill profiles. I know the capsule does an ascent from earth to ISS and then descends back to earth. Does uphill = ascent? Why are they using verbs I’ve not heard in a spaceflight context before?

  5. The is the same “banks are too big to be allowed to fail” mentality. NASA keeps slobbering on Boeing knob because to many former or future Boeing staff are at NASA. They do not want to look incapable and have to bow down to a private company to bring back Butch and Suni. The USA has let contractor run the show for too long and now they do not know what to do. NASA will do everything to save their butt if nothing else to look in control. This was one mission and relatively simple, now think about the Artemis missions, if NASA fails here there is no confidence that they can succeed with the more complicated Artemis.

  6. FistOfTheWorstMen on

    Should be noted that Stich indicated that a decision on how to return Butch and Suni (i.e., on Starliner, or on Crew 9 Dragon) will have to be made in “mid-August.” I guess that gives Boeing one more week to try to close their case for Starliner.