Man the reporting on this ordeal has been so awful and so representative of how media misleads the public into thinking things are worse than they actually are.
It isn't a rescue mission, it's a regular crew rotation mission with modifications to account for the extra crew left on the station, and those crew are 'stuck' only in the sense that they're expected to stay there as part of their duties and it would be unnecessarily disruptive to operations to bring them back early. Starliner was still deemed to be safe enough to be the emergency escape option while it was docked, then the emergency escape option became seats setup in the cargo portion of the Crew-8 capsule.
Well hmm. NASA decided Starliner wasn't safe enough to use for the return journey, so the astronauts stayed on the ISS until the next ride became available.
Originally the astronauts were supposed to go back on Starliner. Now they're taking another ride back. Is that considered a rescue? Well, it depends.
If you get left behind on an island because your ride wasn't safe and another boat picks you up, is that a rescue? Now what if you're 420 kilometers up and another boat has to come get you. Is that a rescue?
If there wasn't another ride from the ISS available, would the astronauts be stranded? Yes.
In that case, if a ride suddenly became available would it be considered a rescue? Probably, yes.
Following the analogy... you're on an island. A ferry has showed up at the island every six months or so for the last 40 years. The last ferry that showed up broke before it could leave the harbor. No need to worry, though. Another ferry's coming in six months and there are plenty of supplies on the island.
Is it rescue? Maybe in the sense that you can't leave when you wanted to and now you have to wait. But not in the sense that you were ever in any real danger.
(Admittedly, maybe there is a bit more danger for these astronauts because a malfunctioning spacecraft is inherently a bit of a safety hazard. And the SpaceX operation is certainly not as routine as a ferry showing up at a dock, though it's still safe.)
It seems that it is both a bit subjective whether one calls it "rescue," and also a bit sensationalized to put in a headline too.
> not in the sense that you were ever in any real danger
The analogy breaks down because an island isn’t space. Your default state on an island tends towards remaining alive. Your default state in space is dead.
A closer analogy is a plane in flight. It takes energy and effort to keep everyone alive. Externally-assisted recovery from peril, in that situation, is a rescue. Even if it’s convenient.
> Is that a rescue?
Well, was there an accident? It seems like the astronauts staying extra long is to avoid an accident. Does their need to be an accident to call it a rescue?
> it's a regular crew rotation mission with modifications
Standard but modified is an oxymoron. This is an irregular mission.
NASA plans with tonnes of redundancy. That’s paying off here. Being prepared doesn’t poof away a fuck-up, it just means you can take it in stride. Starliner stranded two astronauts in space. Dragon is fixing that. Being saved from being stranded sure as hell sounds like being rescued, even if it’s close to routine.
> Starliner was still deemed to be safe enough to be the emergency escape option while it was docked
This is a threshold met by a torn parachute on a jet.
Occhams razor might say the reasons to downplay this incident are overwhelmingly more attractive.
- Boeing is a fortune 50 company and is a direct contributor to news media advertising revenue.
- Boeing is a darling of US aerospace and a bulwark of us international projection of soft power and defense. Telling the truth will destroy the us aircraft market.
- china does not have this problem with its space program. The comac airliner also directly competes with Boeing's beleaguered 737
- loss of confidence in the us space program at the vehicle level jeopardizes trust from consumers and insurance companies in the us space products market like satellite launches.
“Ultimately, NASA felt it was not able to understand why the thrusters malfunctioned and decided that it was too risky to return its astronauts to Earth aboard Starliner, which will attempt to return uncrewed.”
Too risky? Stranded? Rescued (hopefully)?
So “regular” they had to bump two astronauts who had trained for a mission on ISS.
"It isn't a rescue mission, it's a regular crew rotation mission with modifications..."
Rescue definition: an act of saving or being saved from danger or distress. The mission to take astronauts off the space station clearly fits this definition - an extended, unplanned and indefinite stay in space has to be distressing at the least.
Has the HN standard become that you can argue the most ridiculous thing if you make that argument against the media?
Edit: "regular crew rotation" implies normal and expected but the point is, even if the crew is in no danger, this wasn't regular or expected.
This launch was normal and expected crew rotation, they just kicked a few people off the mission so that there would be open seats on the way back.
> normal and expected crew rotation, they just kicked a few people off the mission so that there would be open seats
That’s neither normal nor expected!
Go back to the age of exploration. A crew’s ship strands them on an island. Another ship was due to come anyway in 6 weeks, and the crew have enough food to last them that interval. They use witches to tell the coming crew of their problems, and that ship agrees to lighten its load to make room for the stranded.
This is a rescue! It’s an easy rescue. But so was, like, pulling my puppy out of the neighbor’s pool when it went under the cover.
Only seems like a rescue if you specify that they're alone on the island to be honest.
If you had said that they were left at an outpost with other people for six months it somewhat loses it's "rescue" vibes.
> If you had said that they were left at an outpost with other people for six months it somewhat loses it's "rescue" vibes
When a country pitches into instability and nations evacuate their citizens, are they not rescuing them?
I suppose I’d invert the question: why does framing the mission as a rescue bug you?
Yes, to rescue two other people stranded on the ISS who were supposed to return home weeks ago.
I can sorta see why some would quibble over "rescue", because it's not like they're in immediate danger, but at the same time they're stranded because their ride malfunctioned and left them somewhere rather inhospitable. And I think "normal and expected crew rotation" as someone put it undersells the fact that while there isn't a special trip for them only, they had to bump other people off the flight just to get them, specifically.
Would people really be that much happier if it was said instead that they were making room for crew marooned by an unsafe spacecraft? I think I'd normally use the word "rescue" there if it was a ship.
But yet it is true that they plan for this kind of thing and that's why they're not in any particularly significant danger due to being marooned.
If my car breaks down while I'm at my fully-loaded villa on day 2 of my 30 day vacation, my friend coming to pick me up isn't a rescue mission.
You shift from talking about danger or distress, to "not regular or expected".
Which is it? I think danger and urgency are marks of "rescue". If they had supplies and were in no immediate danger, I don't see how the term or the alarmism qualifies.
I would describe rescue as:
Whenever I travel to a location, the planned return transport fails AND I would eventually be dead without outside human assistance. That’s a rescue.
In your villa example that is correct: your friend helping you is not a rescue. It’s a convenient helping hand. A space station is a different beast though.
If your villa was on a remote isolated island without anyone else on it, it would be closer to the space station but still not exactly the same. The island, depending on its size might have bountiful food/animals you can hypothetically harvest, not to mention attempting to plant and grow some seeds from the hypothetical fruits and vegetables you already have.
Very little of this is realistically possible in a space station like the one we have.
Your villa is totally incomparable to space or a space station.
Hypothetically:
- you can walk outside, hitch a ride home
- fully loaded means there’s electricity and phones? Call a Taxi?
- walk to a near town shop, buy car parts and fix the car if you have the skills
None of those hypotheticals are even remotely possible in space. It’s a bad comparison.
You mixed the numbers there.
"day 30 of my 2 day vacation" is more accurate.
If my car breaks down while I'm at my fully-loaded villa on day 2 of my 30 day vacation, my friend coming to pick me up isn't a rescue mission.
I don't think being in a leaky space station for eight months, where you suffer the effects of accelerated aging due to zero gravity, is equivalent to a being in a fully loaded villa for a month.
I'm using the "distress" part of "danger or distress". The average person would view the situation as distressing for the astronauts, for the average person "rescue" is appropriate term. Jeesh.
I see this claim a lot and I honestly don't understand why people refuse to see this for the disaster it is (for Boeing).
An 8 day mission turned into a months-long mission unexepctedly and SpaceX ultimately had to bump 2 trained astronauts to return them to Earth. That's the very definition of a rescue and just a wildly massive PR disaster to boot.
Beyond this, we still have no idea of what it will take to return Starliner to flightworthiness and give NASA the confidence that it can carry out an entire mission. It may be completely or just practically doomed at this point.
It was a disaster for Boeing, it was not a disaster for the astronauts. Extending stays at the station is not unheard of for test flights, the Crew Dragon test flight also involved the crew staying longer than initially intended, as NASA decided that it'd be a more effective use of resources to do so.
SpaceX did not have to bump 2 trained astronauts to return them to Earth. That was simply the cheapest, least disruptive way to bring them back. There has always been the option of sending a dedicated Dragon for them, but that would require NASA to pay for an entire additional Dragon mission just to bring two people back who are in no urgent need of bringing back.
You go to an island for your employer, and the ferry breaks down once you get there. While your employer can send another ferry soon to bring you back, they ask if you'd be okay staying for a rotation because that'd be more convenient for them. They also arrange a means for you to leave in case of an emergency. You're enjoying the island, so you agree. The replacement ferry is not a rescue.
Starliner made the uncrewed return just fine, which means that on NASA's side, the return to flight should not be too complicated (well, besides showing that the doghouse deformation issues have been resolved) and should not involve a redo of this flight. What remains to be seen is what position Boeing takes on it, as they have been very quiet over if they're going to continue in Commercial Crew.
They could also pay Russia to bring them back to Kazakhstan on a Soyuz.
Another American ISS astronaut, Tracy Dyson, came back in this manner last Monday.
Given the geopolitical situation, they probably wouldn't do that. Tracy was a part of a seat-swap program that was in the works prior to the war in Ukraine. Starliner only came back without crew because Dragon was available as a backup, else they'd have definitely come back on Starliner.
If you have the choice between a spacecraft that has a definite 99.7% chance of successful return (Dragon) and a spacecraft that probably has a 99.7% chance of successful return, but you can't be sure it isn't 99% (Starliner), you'd choose Dragon.
But, if you have to choose between the latter and paying an adversary, you'd just choose Starliner.
This is a matter of perspective. The mission is what you call it.
Sure, it’s not a “rescue”, it’s just an “unplanned itinerary change to another vessel”.
Also, they’re not “marooned”, they’re “getting an extended work opportunity”.
So if you ride a ferry on a regular basis (which I'm sure at least a handful of HN folks do) - if that ferry breaks down before the return trip, when you catch the next ferry is that a "rescue mission", or are you just catching the next ferry? Replace ferry with bus, car, taxi, airplane, your transportation mode of choice.
Calling this a rescue is, to OPs point, just dramatizing the situation for clicks. In pretty much any other circumstance, it wouldn't even make the news.
If you're on an island, the ferry breaks down and the next one is in three months, yeah it's a rescue mission.
I don't know why people want to quibble about usage that seems clear.
I'd just call it the next ferry. If there was an extra boat sent before the next ferry was due, that could be a rescue mission (or just a replacement boat).
> just call it the next ferry
The next ferry doesn’t have room. It has to change its plans to accommodate you.
When my friend's car broke down on the mountain 15 minutes from both of our homes and I brought them a jacket and McDonalds while they wait for a tow, that was a rescue.
Like it's not much, but come on.
I respectfully partially disagree. Sure, the term "rescue" is a bit over the top and evokes "Apollo 13" vibes. OTOH, Boeing has "$14.8bn in Pentagon contracts in 2022" [1]. Boeing has plane crash issues for years now across more than 1 model. And its space program just had an embarrassing failure. Given their failures, the amount of revenue they get from the US federal gov, and their level of influence over various aspects of defense funding/spending, I do not think this story should be dismissed as an overly sensational, run-of-the-mill story that does not make the news.
IMO, US citizens/taxpayers would be very justified to be pissed about the failures of a company that their tax dollars heavily fund (from the same article I referenced above, its like 37% of their revenue). The series of very public failures that affect people directly (planes) and affect their tax dollars (recent series of failures of their space program) certainly warrants outrage and coverage. that's my 2 cents
[1]: https://www.airforce-technology.com/features/boeing-pleads-g...
or
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/01/02/ho...
A more apt analogy would be:
You are the captain and pilot of the ferry. And it is such a complicated ferry that you are extensively trained on how to navigate it. It is, in fact, so complicated and different that there are other ferries around but you can only sail yours. You can't just hop on another one and do the same trip.
You took this ferry to an island in the middle of nowhere and after you got there you realized the ferry was broken. Nobody knows how bad... it might snap in half in the middle of the return trip.
You have plenty of provisions for the next few months and you are not alone on the island. Other ferries still come and go but you can't just hop on those, you don't know how to operate them.
They sent one of those other ferries just for you with a smaller crew to accommodate you. Without it you are not coming back.
Is it a rescue?
If you're in the ocean and your ship breaks down and another ship adjusts its plans to come pick you up, is that a rescue?
If there were no changes needed to the subsequent flight to accommodate two additional riders, sure, not a rescue. But there are, and that's important from multiple perspectives (not least of which is cost)
I agree that calling it a rescue is a bit much, but this is hardly a case of missing a bus or ferry and catching the next one.
If you missed a ferry, expecting to be away from your family for a week, only to find you are stuck on a desolate island for 8+ months you would probably feel like you were being rescued.
My understanding is the astronauts don’t mind staying longer because they enjoy it and for some (all?) it may be their last mission in space, in part due to the decommissioning.
And most people like visiting islands. That doesn't change the fact that this was supposed to be 8 days not 8 months.
> Replace ferry with bus, car, taxi, airplane, your transportation mode of choice.
I mean I've certainly been stuck at an airport because I had a ticket for a flight that ended up getting canceled, which necessitated me remaining at the airport for an extended period of time. I had an expectation of getting a new ticket for a new flight, but none of that changed the fact that I was indeed stuck.
It’s a downsized crew, right? As in they purposely are sending up fewer people so that there is room to bring back everyone?
You are leaving out the tiny detail that compared to a ferry there are very limited opportunities to catch the next ferry. If a ferry breaks down you aren’t stuck in the island for 8 months. You could charter a boat, get a helicopter, go for a swim.
Significant unexpected planning and spending have to go into getting them a different ride home.
It’s closer to your car breaking down in a remote area. Would a tow truck be a rescue? I would think so.
It's similar to your car breaking down in a remote area only if you've trained extensively for that area (almost your entire life), have food and supplies for the entire duration, have friends and entertainment, and can do your job as well as novel career options the entire time as well.
It's overly dramatic to call it a rescue mission. It just is. It's not great that they're up there longer than planned, but they're not going to explode or fly off into space.
"Rescue" conveys a much more negative situation than "unplanned itinerary change where the astronauts are safe and which they are happy about because they get to spend more time in space".
Lol, people still shilling for Boeing at this point.
Unbelievable.
Pointing out overly sensational and misleading reporting is not shilling for Boeing.
Yeah, something people forget is routine things happen. But people like to think of events as singular unexpected grand things even if they’re just part of an older expected thing. Take D-day for instance. We make movies about the landings and how dramatic it was, but the truth: a regular troop rotation into territory, something routine for the armed forces.
I can’t tell if you’re joking? D-Day being ‘a regular troop rotation’ is an amazing description.
I read somewhere someone who compared news to the presenters at a horse race. If you just look, it might be a boring uneventful race. But if you listen to the presenters, it’s very exciting. “Now horse A is in front!!! Oh wait. Horse B takes the lead!! Wait. Horse A is coming back.” For example, EV taxes in Europe “There are rumors on EV taxes!! Wait some guy says there will be no extra taxes!! Oh wait. Rumors for 40%!! No 30%!! Breaking news!! It’s 40%!”
Unfortunately, they've taken to doing things like saying Horse C is in the lead when it's actually Horse B and telling everyone Horse A has gone lame when it's clearly neck in neck with Horse B while pretending that Horse D doesn't exist because they don't like the jockey.
Community Notes template for multiple contexts.
I am absolutely convinced that the 24 hour news cycle is the problem in society at large, at least in the US. Everything else draws from that.
Social media, full of bullshit to drive eyes to constant news feed. Political divide literally caused by the 24 hour cycle.
It needs to end.
See also Jelle's Marble Runs
I guess I'm a victim of this reporting to some extent, because I remember this situation going on for months, and I keep thinking every time it's mentioned (often) how terrible it must be for these astronauts and why something isn't done about it. But I know almost nothing regarding details. I know I despise Boeing and that I admire astronauts and that reading this headline, I thought 'its about fucking time!'
But if I realize the entire situation has been misrepresented, I think I will be annoyed with myself. Is this really all nonsense? Is the situation normal, or common?
> Is the situation normal, or common?
They went up on an experimental spacecraft on its shakedown cruise. They’re coming down on a different spacecraft than planned — a different make of spacecraft, even. That’s never happened before, and is neither normal nor common. The spacecraft type they flew up will almost certainly never fly again because of how badly the shakedown went. That’s never happened before to a manned design to my knowledge — certainly not normal or common.
Because I cannot upvote comments on HN, I'll clutter the thread by thanking both you and the other fellow who gave pretty good explanations.
Why can't you upvote comments on HN?
It appears you're referring to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30742539
The most likely explanation of the effect you're observing is that the server, having done a database fetch to get you the profile once, is not interested in doing it over and over again.
It's cached. You do not have a uniquely broken upvote button.
There were issues with Boeing's Starliner that made it difficult for NASA to quantify the risk of bringing the test crew back on it. NASA still believed that the risk was likely to be negligible, but since they had the option of taking a fully proven spacecraft back home, they opted to send Starliner home empty.
The astronauts were/are comfortable on the ISS. There are plenty of supplies, and more have gone up as part of regular resupplies. IIRC the only discomfort for them was having to use makeshift sleeping places until the previous crew departed. As astronauts, they pretty much live to go into space, so they were happy, of course with the minor caveat of the disappointment regarding their primary mission not panning out and of having to be away from family for a few months. Especially considering that they are unlikely to get to be in space again as the ISS is due for retirement by the end of the decade and NASA wants to give space travel experience to the astronauts intended for the Moon.
Putting it differently, the biggest issue/inconvenience with this situation was that Starliner was taking up a docking port and causing things to have to be rescheduled. Prior to launch, crew are trained to operate certain experiments, or to do servicing space walks. Since the crew being launched had to be reordered, these plans had to be reworked.
There are a lot of people focusing in on the fact that they will be returning in February, but they're completely ignoring the fact that they're perfectly capable of coming back early, that option is actively not being chosen as having them stay till then would be more optimal for station operational planning.
It's worth noting that the astronauts in question have little to no control over the schedule, so "perfectly capable of coming back early" isn't a fair assessment in this context.
Coming back "early" would also occur at a cost of either tens of millions of dollars for an extra launch, or at a cost of valuable experiments not getting run because the space station was empty of personnel. NASA policy would prohibit the remaining astronauts from... well, remaining, because they have to have a lifeboat, which the two "rescuees" would have just used to go home. Thus, all of them would have to go home.
IOW, painting this as "normal operations" in any sense is disingenuous. The danger levels may not be overly exacerbated, but it was a very costly failure, and it may well be a drastic inconvenience to the astronauts. We likely won't know the truth of the latter until they write their memoirs.
It's easy to manage spin when the opinions being spun are in orbit on a restricted communication system.
“Normal” and “common” would still be the last words on my mind considering the amount of planning and money that goes into sending people to space and back. The only normal situation would be they go there and then back alive on the same mission as originally planned. Any divergence from that is totally abnormal.
To everyone saying "oh, the astronauts like having to be up there. It is an opportunity."
You get that they have no choice, right? And that for multiple reasons they are going to put the best spin on the event. For one, for their own sanity, they are going to be as positive and optimistic as possible. For two, there is likely a huge PR pressure to be as positive and optimistic as possible.
Being in space is a pretty big deal. It comes with lots of health risks, and they are isolated from their loved ones. For example, they might be missing funerals for friends or family members, they might be missing milestones of their children, etc... etc...
> It comes with lots of health risks
It also means their forward flight time is curtailed. The near future holds manned missions more exciting than the ISS. There is a real possibility someone who might have gone to the Moon or even Mars doesn’t, now, because of Boeing.
Mars??? That’s more than a bit of a stretch. The astronauts in the ISS right now weren’t up there for a significantly longer period of time compared to their peers. Absolutely no way it would disqualify them from a mission happening a decade from now which is an absolute best case scenario for mars and frankly even the moon the way the current political climate is in the US.
It’s still an opportunity. You can have more kids, but most people probably only get maximum one chance in their life to spend half a year in space, even if they are extremely lucky.
It’s also not like they didn’t know that death or delay or anomalous conditions wasn’t on the table. They’re test pilots, after all. Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.
> By the time they return, the pair will have logged more than eight months in space. They expected to be gone just a week when they signed up for Boeing’s first astronaut flight that launched in June.
What kind of overtime do you think they are clocking?
And will that overtime take into account the effect of time dilation?!
Heh I’d hate to be their families too. Sometimes I travel for work, if a week turned into 8 months it would be mayhem.
And wasn't the mission already on the schedule? The title says "launches mission for 2 astronauts.."
So is this a reflection on Boeing engineering culture? Seems it would be, I remember comments from previous articles saying it is.
Do those guys get paid overtime?
Very cool of SpaceX. They’re a great company and very professional. If you’re lucky enough to work with them it’s a real pleasure.
Who down voted an honest complement? What a loser lol
Thank you Elon!
SpaceX is pretty much America’s space program at this point - absolutely incredible!
Weird way of looking at it. Was Roscosmos “America’s space program” when they were selling the rides?
No. They were just the rescue (to stay on theme) for America's space program.
Currently SpaceX makes up 90% of global launch mass in the past year. It may as well be the western world’s space program pretty soon, with China and Russia only launching their own military payloads.
Kinda is, and it’s all Elon’s fault.
Or perhaps blame Boeing and NASA, rather than the single competent organisation that's managing to hold the whole damned thing together.
> Kinda is, and it’s all Elon’s fault.
Not sure what you mean by that. Are you suggesting that Elon/SpaceX sabotaged Boeing Starliner program? Because it seems pretty obvious that Boeing did that all on their own.
How much of SpaceX’s boring day to day stuff (including ~all of the F9 stuff) do you think he has a hand in anymore?
Isn’t he running Tesla, Twitter, Neuralink, The Boring Company, Starlink, and the Starship R&D, including its first-of-it’s-kind Raptor engine design which just hit major version 3? And also raising the remainder of his 12 kids (~8?) that are still speaking to him?
I’m fairly certain that most of the “boring” stuff at SpaceX happens despite Musk, not because of him. Ms. Shotwell’s (the SpaceX COO) name doesn’t come up nearly as often as his does, and I suspect she does at least an order of magnitude more work there.
Indeed, several SpaceX staff wrote an open letter complaining about him and his antics being a distraction that hinders them.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/01/spacex-illegally...
Kind of hilarious the lengths they're going to in order to not give credit to elon / space x.
Boeing / current admin continues to be a complete joke.
SpaceX is the first word of both the headline and article?
Personally I was glad they omitted the obligatory clickbait mention of his name, but yeah it is a little conspicuous how they only show this restraint on the good news...
Not in this article but I read an ABC News article where they vehemently avoided to mention SpaceX when they talked about the Starliner’s problem and the decision of NASA. Literally not even a single word. Hilarious :D
Hopefully everything will work fine. But if anything goes slightly wrong, those media companies will highlight Elon's name in every opportunity.
Reminiscent of Biden gathering all car manufacturers except Tesla and praising GM for electrifying the industry.
GM.
Obama bailed out Tesla, and if that hadn’t happened Elon would have been cooked.
https://www.wired.com/2009/06/tesla-loan/
Biden is writing huge checks to SpaceX.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/pentagon-...
Elon sucks at the teat of government and cozies up to the guy who thinks windmills cause cancer and is vehemently anti-EV.
Boeing is another issue, but Elon is nothing without Uncle Sam.
You’re missing a few factors:
1. The US would’ve been paying Russia about 10x the cost if SpaceX didn’t exist.
2. Boeing was awarded a ~$3B contract within the Artemis mission and, so far, the outcome is that they can’t safely bring back the astronauts they sent to space.
Those two factors alone indicate that it’s more a mutually beneficial relationship between SpaceX and the government with, arguably, SpaceX providing more benefit relative to the government.
You're pretty good at writing clickbait headlines yourself. Those huge checks are a DoD contract for unblockable internet coms not some handout and for $20 million a month it sounds like Elon is giving them a deal, at least compared to what Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman get every year. They don't just suck the teat, they eat half of it.
You make a good point (imo) but you end on such a grim mixed metaphor!
I think "rescue" is a little dramatic.
Starbase, TX is rapidly overtaking Cape Canaveral, FL. This "extended work opportunity" of sorts is being milked for maximum instrumental utility.
what do you mean? crew-9 launched from the cape, like all crewed missions. in fact, it was the first crewed mission to launch from SCL-40 instead of the usual 39a.