03-19-2025, 05:15 PM
pdq wrote:
This part was particularly damning to Trump’s re-write:
The [Boeing] Starliner crew was never in need of a rescue mission - a [SpaceX] Crew Dragon spacecraft - the one that launched in September - has been parked outside the ISS this entire time! The crew could have left the station at any point since September. However, doing so would have been incredibly wasteful, as the other Crew-9 astronauts would have had to join them for the return trip. Six month stints aboard the ISS are standard.
Which is to say, NASA sent up a SpaceX rocket to the ISS in September with only two of the four seats filled. They could have promptly loaded up the two “abandoned” astronauts into those two empty seats and brought them back then.
But as the piece says, it would have been incredibly wasteful, leaving no astronauts on the ISS. Instead, the two Boeing astronauts essentially pulled a double shift. Dunno about you, but I saw them on TV saying repeatedly, that they were fine - that they stayed longer than they had originally planned, that they were looking forward to getting back to earth, but they were fine.
And of course, all this was planned at NASA, during Biden’s time. So, as usual, Trump is coming in at the last minute and claiming it was all his doing.
:RollingEyesSmiley5:
Thanks for the link, Tiangou.
If SpaceX never existed, wed've just sent up a Space Shuttle. "All aboard!" Same outcome.