Boeing Has Taken its Problems to the Next Level - Literally - By Leaving Two Astronauts Stuck in Space

Joe Marino. Shutterstock Images.

If you don't recognize these two in the flight suits with the unmistakably Freudian, phallic rocket patches, you should. These are Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. Who recently put their lives in the hands of the engineers at America's newest partner in space travel. 

Since the people they trusted are quite literally rocket scientists, you'd be safe in assuming those are the best possible hands to put yourself in. On the other hand, since those brainiacs are drawing paychecks from Boeing, which is having a bit of an issue with keeping air passengers and whistleblowers alive, as Billy pointed out:

… there's every reason to be concerned. 

After all, when you're going to leave a perfectly good planet surface in order to strap yourself into the a seat at the top of a 10-story tower of highly combustible fuel, the very least you can hope for is that while you're doing it, the CEO of the company won't be getting grilled by Congress and apologizing to the families of the people one of his planes just killed:

But if Boeing was hoping to distract everyone from this disaster and the very suspicious deaths of those whistleblowers with the jangling keys of a dramatic and successful space mission, they've got another thing coming. Instead all they've done is prove their mechanical failures aren't limited to 30,000 feet:

Source - It seemingly took a small miracle for Boeing's Starliner to limp to the International Space Station in one piece — but the company is far from being out of the woods. 

Yes, the plagued spacecraft managed to finally make it to the orbital outpost, with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board, earlier this month.

But the journey didn't go by without a hitch — officials quickly discovered five different helium leaks affecting Starliner's thruster system. …

The original plan was for Wilmore and Williams to stay on board the station for around a week. NASA has since announced that the two won't return until at least June 26, making their visit a minimum of three weeks longer than anticipated. …

In short, Boeing's first crewed test flight has instilled little confidence so far — and there's a lot that could still go wrong.

Here's an interview with retired astronaut Leroy Chiao, who calmly and rationally does the Ed Harris "We've never lost a man in space, and it's not gonna happen on my watch. Failure is not an option!" speech. Explaining that losing five thrusters and leaking helium is no biggie. That they work such failures into their calculations. That there are built in redundancies for handling just such eventualities. There are contingencies in place. And if worse comes to worst, Suni and Butch ("Butch and Suni-dance"? Let's workshop this) can live on the ISS for months. 

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But to me the money shot comes at around the 2:30 mark where he says that if it's determined Starlink can't make it back to the home planet without adding to Boeing's death toll (my wording, not his), they can always turn to the guy who already mastered the art of:

1) Putting humans into space. And more importantly:

2) Bringing them home in one piece. 

This guy:

Amazing, if it should work out that way. Boeing's entire existence is built around putting flying objects into the air and (with the exception of their very profitable weapons division) landing them safely on terra firma. And they can't even do that right. Meanwhile, spacecraft is just one of the things Elon Musk makes. Along with EVs, solar energy systems, communications satellites, tunnels, AI, neural chips, babies, more babies, and dad jokes:

Just apparently not access to free porn, like we thought:

 I guess no man can do everything.

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And while all this was happening to Boeing and the two intrepid, brave, trusting souls who put their faith in a company that can't put a door on an airplane, Elon was passive-aggressively flexing on his own platform. Showing what SpaceX is doing routinely now:

If I was Williams and Wilmore, I think I'd be inside that Starliner right now, quietly pulling plugs and disconnecting hoses. Throwing as many monkeywrenches into the works as possible, and then waiting for SpaceX to come to my rescue. If we can't trust Boeing to safely get us from Dallas/Fort Worth to Raleigh/Durham, how can we expect them to safely get them from low Earth orbit to the ground?