.webp?h=10 "Top Hat (black) - Traditional. Classy. Elegant.")
aweonao
https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1892584783064052114#m
Context, the astronauts weren't abandoned, they tested the Boeing Starliner capsule and for safety reasons the capsule returned without the crew as it presented issues like helium leaks. As result of this the mission was extended and the SpaceX crew 9 mission was launched in September last year with only 2 astronauts so the other two from Starliner could return on it once their mission ended. Events like this have happened before with Roscosmos Soyuz launch delays and re-scheduling.
Anyway, this whole thing is incredibly stupid !spacechads !ifrickinglovescience !engineering
Dane here (as is Mogensen).
You know, SpaceX was the main reason why I started liking Elon. I followed SpaceX from the beginning, and thought it was exciting and refreshing. Watching Falcon Heavy's first launch literally made me tear up in joy, it was so amazing. After that, my fascination with SpaceX and space travel almost became an obsession, it gave me hope for the future, something to unite humanity.
I became what most people would define as an Elon Stan.
I staunchly supported everything Elon touched, and whenever a friend or family member told me he wasn't as fantastic as I made him out to be, I got angry.
As time passed, I started reaching the point where the signs were too big to ignore, too many, to obvious, that Elon was indeed what people had tried to tell me for so long - a power hungry butthole who don't give two shits about anything besides his own wealth and power.
I guess it happened around when he bought twitter.
Now, I don't find any nerdy joy in watching Starship fly, because it will only make him richer and more powerful.
I'm sorry to say this - Frick Elon.
I genuinely hopes he has a fallout with Trump and Trump takes everything away from him.
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Do you realize how r-slurred arguing 'um technically they weren't stranded/abandoned' makes you sound?
They have been stuck there for months. If SpaceX didn't exist there would be no way to get them back safely.
This a not normal and no amount of coping and "well actshually" will be able to spin this as anything less than an embarrassment for Boeing and NASA.
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Because being abandoned implies that NASA left them with no way back which is not what happened.
I'm not gonna defend Boeing as the whole Starliner program is cursed, their vehicle still landed but it didn't pass enough redundancy so NASA made the call for it to return uncrewed, and they only did that after re assigning 2 of the Crew 9 astronauts to other future missions. NASA simply decided it was more practical to extend their mission over having to pay for an extra dragon flight and spoil the mission assigned to crew 9. Remember that every Dragon flight costs 220 million dollars and SpaceX has a fixed priced contract with NASA up to crew 14.
You're right that this isn't business as usual but astronauts getting months extensions isn't unheard of either.
Most recently on Soyuz MS-18 NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei stayed a year on space instead of his 6 month predicted mission. The reason is that the Russians decided Soyuz MS-19 was going to take a film director and an actress to shoot a movie, so that later crew returned after a week on their capsule while Vande Hei and his Russian crew mates had to stay another 6 months.
!spacechads
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!tldr
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So you could say they're stranded?
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How is making a astronaut stay in space because of some film director or whatever even remotely comparable to ASTRONAUTS HAVING TO STAY IN SPACE WITH BECAUSE THERE'S NO SAFE WAY BACK BECAUSE BOEING FRICKED UP???
Do you not see how a technical failure causing astronauts to be stranded* in space is a HUGE FRICKING DEAL AND A NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT??
*DEFINITION: left without the means to move from somewhere.
It's not that they're stuck in space, they're probably thankful for this. It's why they're stuck in space.
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The point is that after the Starliner fiasco NASA had 2 options.
1) re-assign 2 of the Crew 9 astronauts and give Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore their functions, extending their mission.
2) negotiate with Musk for an extra, unplanned and out of contract Dragon flight to pick them up.
Musk is basically throwing a hissy fit because NASA didn't buy another flight from him.
No one is arguing over Boeing fricking up, just that Musk and Trump are making up problems which were solved months ago. The Russian film thing I mentioned was just to exemplify that astronauts can get mission extensions for the most futile reasons.
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lol, that blows up
@nuclearshill's argument.
Remember, the Democrats hated Elon after he bought Twitter which was essentially acting as their propaganda machine.
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Exactly just like that time he had a meltdown when the thai rescue team wouldn't let him be the hero by using his r-slurred submarine in a fricking cave
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"NASA can't be blamed for not wanting to pay extra to fix their frick up and letting innocent party suffer as a result of their frick up was a reasonable alternative"
Is that the point you were making or did I misunderstand?
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oh my god dude, chill with the theatrics. they're just waiting longer than expected to come home
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Yeah, man, it's not like people have lives outside of orbiting in a space station, who cares if a bunch of NASA and Boeing corpos couldn't be bothered to spit out some extra money to fix their frick up.
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You are talking like they have been there for years
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They've been there longer than they were supposed to when they didn't have to.
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They've literally said themselves that they were prepared to be up there that long and to stop politizing it. Are you going to argue that the astronauts themselves are controlled by the now non-existent Biden government to stay quiet about wanting to come home or being "abandoned"?
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Probably not abandoned, but certainly fired or sued due to some random contract where they are not allowed to publically talk shit about their company.
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Considering the extra fix costs over 200 million dollars then yeah
, why bother when the following flight took of in September.
On a fair world Boeing would have paid for a return mission lol.
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I don't think 200 mil would have made Boeing bankrupt.
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ok that's a reasonable take.
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