If you've been watching lately, you know that Boeing has problems that go beyond anything on this planet, quite literally. While its CEO was answering tough questions on Capitol Hill yesterday, its engineers were grappling with issues dealing with their Starliner spacecraft since they launched on June 5th and its first crewed test flight. Astronauts have navigated several issues, including malfunctioning thrusters and helium leaks, and it's turned their week long mission into a three week stay on the International Space Station. Retired NASA astronaut Leroy Chow joins us now. Leroy, help us understand these problems and how much of a concern this is. Well, right. As you pointed out, Boeing has had a lot of problems, not only on the commercial airplane side, but also on the space side. Starliner way behind the original schedule. A lot of development problems finally got off the ground. Butch and sunny are aboard the station, but not before encountering several minor difficulties. Helium leaks, thruster failures. you know, these are kind of medium to light problems because it doesn't really threaten the mission at this point. It's just a little bit concerning that, we're having these, you know, numerous small glitches. But the bottom line is the helium leaks are about, you know, pretty small. NASA says they can tolerate about 100 times what's currently leaking. Had five thrusters fail on the way to the station. Four of them have been reactivated. One remains disabled. shouldn't keep them from coming home safely. NASA and Boeing, just being extra conservative. Don't want to be complacent. Want to go through everything. And so just being a little bit extra cautious, that's why the mission is being extended. So as it is, the i.s.s. is kind of, a crammed space, right. So I'm wondering what kind of contingencies are made for this kind of situation where you have astronauts essentially stuck for two more weeks than originally planned? Right. So NASA, of course, what we do at NASA is we make, contingency plans. We plan for redundancies, backups, and so you can bet that the folks at NASA have been looking at. Well, in the very worst case that we decide that Starliner cannot come back with watching sunny. What can we do? Well, of course, which in sunny can safe haven at the guess for, you know. Well, basically a number of months at least. And so, that would be time to get a replacement spacecraft up, probably, SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that NASA would have to re jumble the traffic model, but certainly a space, Dragon could be brought up to bring Butch and Sunny home. So in the very worst case, that would be what would happen. But, you know, as I said, the problem for Starliner is experiencing are relatively minor. So I fully expect that on the 26 per the planned current plan, Butch and Sunny will make it back safely in the Starliner. Yeah, we're hoping for that. Leroy, I want to turn to the Voyager one spacecraft because this is really impressive. It started sending back data from truly uncharted territory. It was sidelined by a glitch some seven months ago. But now, through some creative programing, NASA is able to gather data from it. What are scientists learning from the Voyager that's out there billions of miles away? Well, you're right, this is pretty amazing. Voyager, now around 15 billion miles away from the Earth. you know, it's it's, or 50 million. Sorry, but it's it's pretty. It's pretty incredible. This spacecraft was launched 47 million or, sorry, 47 years ago. And, here, it's still sending back data, and it's made it to the heliopause, which is, you know, the extent of the, influence from our sun. And so it's sending back data from a place that no probe has ever been. And this is, basically beyond the reach of our solar system. You know, ventured outside first, manmade object to do so. And so it's sending back data on its environment. you know, what's going on out there pretty much in deep galactic space. really, really impressive. Yeah. Whether billions or millions, it's still really impressive. I mean, five decades, nearly of this thing has been out there. Leroy Chow. Always great to chat. good to be with you. Always for us. Thanks. Thanks. Joining me now to discuss Keith Cowing, editor of naps, NASA watchdog. Com. Keith, it is great to see you. Thanks for being here this morning. explain to viewers what happened here. Well, to rewind back why we have a commercial spacecraft. We lost the shuttle. We had to rely on the Russians. Not a good idea. Let's go. Commercial. Two companies, bed space. That this thing Boeing took longer. Spend an extra billion dollars. Have had problems with their spacecraft. First mission a mess. Second one better. Third one. Okay, but the thrusters, the things that steer the spacecraft weren't working right. So they got on the work, right? They docked with the station now trying to figure out, are we. Can we come back safely? That's sort of where we are right now. That's why they keep saying another week. Another week. Yeah. And this is just so people can hear what NASA itself is saying about this issue. We wouldn't say Starliner is safe to bring a crew home in an emergency if we didn't feel confident in the vehicle's capability. We're taking a little bit of extra time to work through what we've seen and make sure we have all the plans in place to to bring the crew home in an, a nominal situation for, for the end of mission. So we're just taking a little more extra time to review all the data and also learn as much as we can while we have this service module in orbit. I mean, are they are they putting a positive spin on this or is that the reality of the situation? I used to work there. Okay. we want a little more time with the data. Everything's nominal. Don't worry. Everything's okay. they're being prudent. And this spacecraft was designed to stay on the space station for, like, six, eight months. So it's not a problem in that sense. But I think they just want to be certain that these little thrusters are going to work reliably so that the spacecraft can come in and land the way it's supposed to, but you can sense a little bit of nervousness on that part. Interesting. And listen to what the astronauts themselves, one of them had suggested about some of the issues ahead of time. Oh, was fine stuff. And we are going to continue to continually find stuff. Everything's not going to be absolutely perfect. As we fly the spacecraft. We feel very safe and comfortable with how the spacecraft flies, and we have back out procedures in case we need those. Everything's not going to be absolute perfect. This is before they took off. Is that generally the case? I mean, for me as a layman, I was like, we shouldn't be. Shouldn't it be perfect? So there's not an issue in space. I know Sonia, I've known her for 20 years. So she's these folks are kind of adept at dealing with the stuff, and they're super courageous and they're dealing with this. But if it's not perfect, if it's not perfect, well, again, I this is a small issue that the helium leaks helium and poisonous use the helium to pressurize the other rockets. It's not something that'll endanger the crew, per se. It's just can you steer this thing? Can you get it to go from point A to B to Earth? And I think they just want to be doubly and triply certain that this is going to happen, because it's like you got a tire in your car is wobbling and you got to drive across town, like, can I make it? That's sort of the decision. What was and what was the purpose of this mission to begin with? What are they trying to achieve? Oh, it was a test flight. The mission was two people get in, they go into space to dock to the station. Nothing breaks. They do their thing, they come home. It's a test flight. There's only two people on board. You can have five or 6 or 7 people on this thing during a regular operational mission, and just pretend any issues about going back to the moon. This. No, this this spacecraft has nothing to do with going back to the moon. That's still that's a different spacecraft. That's that's totally is that's a total different interesting mix of can we do it in time sort of things. I say okay, all right. Well we'll see if hopefully they come back safely and not delayed too much longer. And we'll see. Maybe they were they were just being cautious. And let's hope that that is absolutely the case. All right. Keith Cowing, thank you so much for joining me this morning. My pleasure Shane Duncan.
