Stranded astronauts' capsule heads home without them
bbc.co.ukI'm wondering whether the astronauts in this situation are excited about getting an extended stay in space without the usual competition for launch opportunities, or are unhappy about it (due to the long separation from family, health effects, the lack of comfort that comes with living on the frontier of what humanity can currently reach, etc.).
This quote:
> “They understand the importance now of moving on and... getting the vehicle back safely.”
makes me think they aren't too happy about this outcome.
I can assure you Butch and Sunny are very happy about getting to spend more time in space. This is also likely their last visit to the ISS. They are both around 60. Older astronauts have gone to the ISS, but if I had to guess they are both probably on their last mission.
If I had to guess, the thing they would dislike the most about the situation is that two previously assigned astronauts scheduled to fly are getting bumped from their mission so that Crew Dragon can fly with two empty seats.
The others blithely assuring you that Wilmore and Williams are happy to have more time in space are wrong.
Yes, flying in space is cool. No, most people don't want to do this indefinitely. Astronauts retire all the time even when they are 100% guaranteed more flight time if they didn't retire; a whole bunch did that in the 1960s and 1970s (some, like Frank Borman, 100% guaranteed to walk on the moon), and more during the shuttle era.
It's one thing to have a mission extended by a day, as happened to the shuttle routinely because of bad weather at the landing site. Skylab 4's mission I believe got extended by 28 days, but that was a known possibility before launch. To have an eight-day mission be extended to *eight months* is in no way shape or form OK.
Wilmore is going to miss his 30th wedding anniversary and other family events. <https://www.wvlt.tv/2024/08/09/family-reacts-tennessee-astro...> To those who think otherwise, do you really think he is thrilled by that? Really?
They literally risk their life to go to space, I’m sure they‘ll be fine with it.
Last time I read about this, the astronauts absolutely love being in space and will be happy about it. Heck even I would be happy, this is a one in a million experience!
rather one in a billion experience :-) at least for now
Their assignment was to complete a test flight. They're probably disappointed they won't get to finish the job.
As astronauts I can't imagine they're too upset over the prospect of more time in space. I'm sure the timing inconveniences medium-term plans they had, and is a pain in the a* from that perspective, but in their line of work you know how to expect the unexpected and roll with new circumstances. I'm sure their loved ones are glad their safety is being considered foremost.
> Their assignment was to complete a test flight. They're probably disappointed they won't get to finish the job.
The Starliner crew had to go manual while approaching ISS because the autonomous docking software couldn't handle the five failed thrusters.
Watch the crew entering ISS. Williams is very, very, very happy to have survived the ascent. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsURePrNTx0>
Stuff like this is so politically loaded it's hard to say. Defending from at least 12 different angles!
Were it me, I'd be conflicted for the obvious reasons. Yay, more time in space. Can do the rare part. Oh no, more time in space - danger.
I'm not an astronaut though - they've been selected for certain behavior
> Oh no, more time in space - danger.
Has anyone ever died in space (as in above the von Karman line)? The danger is on launch and reentry, which is the risk this delay is trying to mitigate.
Even the worst space accident (Apollo 13) ended up returning safely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11
The mission ended in disaster when the crew capsule depressurised during preparations for re-entry, killing the three-person crew.[9] The three crew members of Soyuz 11 are the only humans to have died in space.[b][10]
Yea, that's a fair point - not many. It's more of a "monkey brain" response than anything. In orbit you're high off the ground but not really falling... at it, you know?
edit: I may trust the vessel but state changes are where the devil works
There is also the danger of having a shorter lifespan because of the damage and stress on the body that the extended time in space brings.
Well no, but space is dangerous. Reentry and launch may be more dangerous, but we still go to enormous efforts to keep astronauts in space safe.
Landing video live stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ0T-cZWh78
Landed OK.
No boom?
I wonder how long before they can diagnose what happened.
It landed passively, by parachute.
It did land where it was supposed to, on a designated landing site in the desert, so the re-entry guidance system did its job. This is an improvement over water landings.
land landings has a certain ring to it
I'd love to see the full calculus of risk and reward. Space travel is inherently dangerous, so NASA has to be really concerned.
Equally, until Dragon arrives, they have to means of escape, if there's either issues with the station or with their health.
NASA mist have concluded that the latter is a smaller risk than the Starliner, which I guess says something about how high they though the danger is.
Wow, imagine seeing this news but about Mars or the moon…
Boeing is never going to either
Maybe in a few hundred years a space company will buy the Boeing name and relaunch it, like what car companies are doing, for nostalgia purposes.
The East India Company came back in 2010
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjiv_Mehta_(British_busine...
To add some context: the astronauts are not "stranded" in space. They are in the international space station. They were supposed to get back on this capsule after a few days stay, but they are now expected to stay in the ISS and get back only in February on SpaceX capsule/vehicle.
That is the definition of being stranded. They wouldn't have stayed back if they could have gone with the vehicle.
Nobody is stranded. At no time does NASA not have a plan to evacuate the space station if there's an emergency. There's currently 7 people aboard and 5 space craft docked, all of which can carry multiple people, all of which can be used to get people off the station.
You’re describing a plan for how to deal with stranded astronauts. If I’m on a road trip and my car breaks down at a gas station, I’m stranded. Even if there are other people and other cars at the gas station, and even if I still have access to emergency services, and even if I have a plan for how to deal with being stranded at a gas station.
I think some of us have a different (and perhaps colloquial) definition of stranded. Like, on a deserted island with no practical way home until some random ship happens to come by.
Stranded means you have no means for moving from where you are, or really no practical/acceptable means (you could swim off a deserted island for instance, but that probably wouldn't be considered a practical means of moving off the island).
Boeing has stranded these astronauts on the ISS because it has no (acceptable) means of bringing them down, and the astronauts themselves have no personal means for doing so. If they want to become un-stranded then somebody will need to arrange the means for them to come down.
That doesn't mean that it's impossible for somebody else to provide those means, or that the means simply don't exist in any capacity. But they meet both the dictionary and common colloquial definition of stranded.
Not if you all know you all share the same destination
There's 9 people on board the ISS right now. The Dragon can take 4. The Suyoz can take 3. The other capsules are not designed for crew.
In an emergency, can they really prep and launch a rocket quickly? Are we talking hours/days/week/months?
There is no emergency that would require launching a rocket. They have craft docked to the space station at all times that they can return to Earth on at a moment’s notice.
And they are not using one of those because…
Because more than 2 of them would need to come back to Earth.
I thought about this overnight and isn’t the real problem that nobody is saying is that NASA never wants less than 1 re-entry module on even an empty ISS, so that if god forbid they had to evacuate everyone for any reason other than a dead station, that the next crew has two ways to get home?
So even though everyone fits in the existing modules there is no spare if they let these two go home.
Yes exactly.
No they don't. Dragon takes 4, Soyuz takes 3, 9 people on the ISS, none of the other pods are rated for crewed missions.
Dragon can carry an extra two if necessary in an emergency.
That's not context. It's apologia and Boeing propaganda. An 8 day mission turning into a 6 month mission that can only end because a completely different company brings them home is the definition of "stranded".
That's like saying that after 9/11 when all flights were grounded and you, as a New Yorker, weren't "stranded" in London because, hey, you could always row a boat back. It's such a weird and meaningless semantic defense.
Why are you defending Boeing here?
Had zero intentions of defending Boeing (or anyone else) here. I made a mistake about the meaning of “stranded” in my comment. What I should have said is “they are not stranded in space like how the two main characters in the film ‘Gravity’ were stranded”. Mistake made, lessons learnt. Apologies.
What's their designated lifeboat now that the Boeing is gone?
As per the article, the SpaceX vehicle due for launch later this month will only carry two of the four astronauts originally planned. The two empty seats will be used by the two delayed-return astronauts when the vehicle returns in February.
That's the intended return vehicle, but "lifeboat" refers to how they will get home if they suddenly need to leave the station due to an emergency now (before the SpaceX vehicle launches).
The answer is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41470523
I don't think nasa has a concept of "lifeboat" considering there are not enough seats for everyone currently in the iss.
They're supposed to, between NASA, private US, and Russia. I was asking if that's currently being violated.
AFAIK Crew Dragon Endeavour has been retrofitted with six seats and could (suboptimally?) evacuate the six astronauts on the ISS.
"Seats" is a bit generous. They'd be strapped to the cargo palettes behind the seats, without flight suits. Definitely sub-optimal.
On United, that's called "Premium Economy".
A few minutes of discomfort to save a life - seems OK to me.
I thought they found one flight suit. Can they not use it in the cargo area?
Define stranded please?