Boeing’s first attempt to bring people to space ended up with two astronauts now stuck on the International Space Station for nine months. Their Starliner spacecraft made it home safely, but the company’s reputation is in question.
There is a certain point where every work trip stops being fun — if it ever was to begin with. The novelty of being in a new place wears away and you miss your bed, you want a home-cooked meal, and if you have to keep socializing with your co-worker, you feel as though you might die right there in a hotel bar in Kenosha. Now, imagine you’re on a work trip, and your boss calls you and says that you actually have to stay where you are for six more months.
“I’ve got a question about Starliner,” Wilmore said, with the kind of nonchalance that would suggest he’s about to ask if there’s any gum in the glove compartment. “There’s a strange noise coming through the speaker … I don’t know what’s making it.” The sound was described as “pulsing” by the NASA engineer on the ground, “almost like a sonar ping.” You say sonar ping, I say heartbeat.
For what it’s worth, Wilmore and Williams appear to be in relatively good spirits about this whole thing. They’re not alone up there — in fact, it’s close quarters. There are only six sleep chambers on the ISS, and there are currently nine people aboard. Williams is sleeping in a spare chamber called a CASA with one of the other astronauts, while Wilmore is free floating in a sleeping bag in the Japanese Space Agency’s Kibo module.
The fact that two astronauts have been stranded in outer space should be an incredible blow to Boeing, one that results in change. But it’s hard to see that happening. In July, the companystemming from two fatal 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019. As a result, it agreed to pay a $243.6 million fine and submit to independent monitoring for three years on top of the $2.5 billion settlement the company agreed to pay in 2021.
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