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NASA indefinitely postponed Boeing Starliner's departure from the ISS (payloadspace.com)
4 points by belter 3 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 8 comments



What's the procedure for if the capsule is found to be unfit for re-entry? I'd assume they can't just send up a Soyuz to get them back again because you have to have a fitted seat liner made specifically for you, and I doubt they popped to Russia to get those done before they left. All I can really see is the next dragon would have to go up 2 crew light, and everyone hopes that there aren't any evacuations needed in the meantime


If it meant getting back to Earth, I'd imagine that an astronaut could deal with a bit of a seating issue. I think the problems with Soyuz are a bit more political in nature these days. That said, Dragon already looks really good, but if it has to go up and clean up Boeing's mess, SpaceX is going to look amazing.


It's not really just "a bit of a seating issue", Soyuz landings are very hard and the seat liners are moulded to your body by you literally sitting in a tub of plaster. They are there to support every part of your body to prevent injury, and I very much doubt you could just use someone else's or have a "default" one do the job without a lot of pain


If the option is a lot of pain or possibly never returning to Earth, then it seems like a rather easy choice, doesn't it? Not to mention I'd bet that NASA/Russia have enough engineering talent to figure something out in regards to seat cushioning.


One step closer to them just declaring it's actually a brand new ISS module and is never coming back.


Two ISS modules with leaks? Building a new atmosphere around Earth one leak at a time? :-)


Place them just right and you can use the leaks as thrust for station keeping. Not a bug - it's a feature!


Doesn't it have a 45 day timer on it?




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