Comment on NASA and Boeing say Starliner astronauts ‘are not stranded,’ but will be on the ISS for a few more weeks

MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• Death_Equity@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  They aren’t stranded because there is the emergency capsule to get them back.

  Classic corporate doublespeak and half truths.

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  • pennomi@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    They’re not stranded because the part of the capsule that isn’t working has multiple redundancy and is intended to burn up on reentry anyway.

    Starliner is perfectly capable of leaving the ISS whenever they want, but they would be unable to continue collecting data on the thruster shutoff (again, because it would burn up in the atmosphere).

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  • atocci@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Completely untrue, there are currently only 3 human-rated spacecraft docked to the ISS and none of them are set aside as some sort of emergency capsule. There’s no trickery here. The number of astronauts on board is equal to the number of seats available for them to ride back home in. They aren’t stranded only because Starliner is still fully capable of undocking and taking them home. If it wasn’t, then they would actually be stranded with no alternative way back beyond straping them to the floor of Dragon.

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    • thefartographer@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Getting strapped to the floor of a Dragon sounds like a great plot for a space thriller

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      • Morphit@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Almost happened to Frank Rubio when the radiator blew on his ride.

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  • mkwt@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Except the “emergency capsule” is all of them, including Starliner. Because Starliner is perfectly capable of returning to earth safely.

    Because every thruster that has shut down has hot fired okay, and the known helium leaks still leave enough margin to cover several multiples of the 5 hours or so of RCS operation that you need to get to landing.

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    • Morphit@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I thought one thruster has been permanently disabled now? Not that that’s a major problem, but it does eat into their redundancy somewhat.

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      • atocci@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        Yeah that’s right, they’ve decided to not use one of the 5 again because of performance inconsistencies.

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• jqubed@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  As long as they didn’t bring any whistles with them they’ll be fine!

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• Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I mean, Boeing hasn’t killed them in a fireball of death, hurtling at 18 thousand kph to the earth. The media has this totally wrong, for now. Everything is totally fine, at this time.

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• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Just pining for the microgravity.

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