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.

a reply to: BeyondKnowledge3

I'm not sure about the un-docking procedure, but NASA very much does have an automated routine for Calypso to de-orbit and land.

The un-docking procedure isn't that difficult, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to develop a routine to get it well away from the ISS un-crewed. If it stays there beyond its "use by" date, then this is another matter, but getting it away from the ISS is fairly easy before this point.

From the altitude of the ISS, it's not particularly difficult to put something in a de-orbit condition. Now, it might not land where you want it to, but getting it out of collision-orbit with the ISS is fairly straight forward. Plus, don't forget, Calypso is in the same orbit as the ISS right now (regardless of orientation), so no matter what, all they have to do is put it in a lower orbit do de-orbit the craft. There's enough fuel on Calypso to do this now, and will be for a good while.

If they decide to abandon Calypso (bad news for Boeing!), they can de-orbit the craft, un-crewed, pretty simply. A crewed descent is much more difficult, especially with questionable retros. A 2 degree miss will be the demise of the crew. Un-crewed, a 2 degree miss will only mean a 2000 to 3000 mile departure from the landing site. Timed properly, this will be somewhere in the Southern Ocean. (i.e. Bye bye, Calypso, but no loss of crew).

Looks like it's going to be SpaceX to the rescue

www.newsweek.com...

"Our primary option is to return Butch and Sunny on Starliner. However, we have done the requisite planning to ensure we have other options open. We have been working with SpaceX to ensure they are ready to respond with Crew-9 as a contingency," said Stich.

They have delayed the crew 9 mission so they can have it fly with only 2 people going up in order to bring the stranded astronauts back.

It's all but a done deal at this point and starliner would need a total redesign to go up again.

Old space sucks. The good ole boy network needs to come to an end. In all areas of government.

a reply to: 5thHead

Saturday, August 24, 2024

Confirmed. It's Elon Musk's Space-X to the rescue!

Breaking: futurism.com...

Gods Speed! 🙏

a reply to: WeMustCare


Not until February?

Friday the starliner will attempt to return to Earth unmanned.

That's just a couple of days away.

Who thinks it will return safely?

I think it probably will be alright . If it blows up or something people will flip. Boeing would probably go bankrupt or something.

Here we go. I might have to watch this live.

www.yahoo.com...

The return journey will begin this evening with a robotic undocking from the International Space Station. The U.S. space agency will broadcast the departure on YouTube and NASA's website at 5:45 p.m. ET Sept. 6.

The coverage will continue at 10:50 p.m. ET when the empty spaceship attempts to leave orbit, re-enter Earth's atmosphere, and land in a New Mexico desert. If the descent happens on schedule, flight controllers anticipate Starliner will touch down at the Army's White Sands Missile Range a little over an hour later, just after midnight ET Sept. 7.