Fifty-five years ago, when humans first walked on the moon, the Apollo 11 astronauts left Earth through the massive power of the Saturn V rocket. The greatest punch came from the rocket’s first stage, which provided 7.5 million pounds of thrust. The awesome spectacle of that first stage was thanks to the work by engineers at Boeing.
Fast forward to the present day, and here is a new spectacle in space provided by Boeing. It’s not awesome.
Two astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, arrived at the International Space Station on June 6, expecting to stay for just over a week. Now they won’t be heading back to earth until February. Their ride was on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, now deemed by NASA to be too risky for the return trip thanks to a host of troublesome technical glitches.
NASA spin doctors object to headlines declaring that the astronauts are “stranded” or “stuck” in space, pointing out correctly that they are not in jeopardy.
But make no mistake: this is a fiasco. And not just because of the strain it puts on Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore and their families. Boeing’s engineering woes extend beyond Starliner — they threaten NASA’s bigger goals of going back to the moon through its Artemis program, for which Boeing has become an essential partner. I was told that a number of retired astronauts are increasingly troubled by Boeing’s performance. This loss in confidence helps put the entire Artemis program into a new state of uncertainty.
Consider the fact that on Aug. 7, Steve Stich, the manager for NASA’s commercial crew program, used the term “multiple failure” to describe the possible concerns he and his team were contemplating about the spacecraft’s propulsion system.