Will NASA use a Space X Dragom to rescue the crew of STARLINER

originally posted by: rickymouse
Remember when NASA used to make good spacecraft? I think they should look at their program and analyze if they should abandon their new designs.

Yea!! I mean...they had what would be today over a BILLION DOLLARS to put toward their equipment! How else would they have afforded the top of the line foil (Reynolds Wrap...forget that Kroger brand), and 3M staples, cardboard tube's youd get from the middle of the GOOD wrapping paper (wedding stuff, not Christmas), and even Scotch brand masking tape. They didnt cut ANY corners with that kind of money! I mean, did you get a LOOK at that lunar equipment!?!?
::patting lunar rover::

::whistle::


::clank....clank clank....crash::

Hundreds of billions well spent!

a reply to: AlexandrosOMegas

It worked just fine.

originally posted by: BeyondKnowledge3
Update on the return of Starliner. Now sometimes in July. NASA is studying the thruster firing data.

I think that unmaned return idea would be best for this flight. It would be a disaster for the crew to be stuck in orbit away from the ISS or burn up from heat shield failure.

At this point, given the DO have alternative options, it would almost be foolish to do anything but deorbit Calypso uncrewed. If NASA orders Wilmore and Williams aboard Starliner Calypso and then it does burn up on reentry this would be a unessessary tragedy and a catastrophe for NASA public relations. Or, almost as bad, if Calypso misses the reentry point by a couple degrees of insertion angle due to malfunctioning thrusters, it could put the vehicle wildly off the landing corridor, possibly even at sea in a location where they are not equipped for recovery. In that case the crew could be waiting days (or even weeks) for recovery vessels to arrive. If that location is in the Southern Ocean, or south Indian Ocean (likely locations), they could wind up making it safely back to Earth only to languish (or perish) in the ocean due to it being winter in the southern hemisphere. The Southern Ocean is not a place where you want to be bobbing around for a week or so in 40 foot waves.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

They have to figure out a way to spin it so they can make it sound like Musk did something wrong.

a reply to: watchitburn

Heh, well, maybe not blame on Musk, but they will certainly not let Space X steal their thunder and be the heroes, if it wind up being Space X saving the day. That would be the death knell for Boeing and certainly not a good omen for NASA either. NASA isn't going anywhere, but Boeing has a metric ton of skin in the game here.

a reply to: AlexandrosOMegas

How long have the voyagers been shuffling through space now. I think the whole project for all the years was only about a billion bucks, which included the cost of forty five years of the program. High pay for the people overseeing the project for the forty some years sure adds up. I can't find what the actual cost of the voyager craft and rockets were on the internet, it gives the whole mission costs.

a reply to: rickymouse

865 million dollars in 1972. That is both Voyagers construction, the rockets, and all the program costs out to the Neptune encounter.

voyager.jpl.nasa.gov...

Sounds cheap now but money was worth a lot more then.

Update on the Boing problem. NASA now says it will not return for months. This according to Fox news.


From what I understand, the capsule only has a limited supply of consumable resources. Fuel, pressurizing gasses, power sources, etc.. How are they going to deal with that?

The two astronauts are the least of the problem now. You can't just release a dead hulk from the airlock and expect it not to bang into you sooner or later. The odbits would intersect every 45 minutes. It would take some menaovering to separate the two.