NASA Admits “Tension in the Room” as It Told Boeing Starliner Couldn’t Return Astronauts to Earth

Is this the understatement of the year?

Difference of Opinion

Amid the ongoing Starliner breakdown fiasco, NASA has admitted that there's been a bit of "tension" between its officials and their counterparts at Boeing.

As highlighted by Space.com, the head of the agency's commercial crew program said during a press briefing earlier this week that the decision to bring the ailing Boeing capsule back to Earth sans its stranded crew was not met with enthusiasm from the embattled aerospace contractor.

According to commercial crew director Steve Stich, Boeing doesn't necessarily agree with NASA's assessment that the issues with Starliner's thrusters and docking modules with the International Space Station make it too unsafe to bring astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth when the craft returns this week.

"Boeing believed in the model that they had created to predict thruster degradation for the rest of the flight," Stich said during the briefing. "The NASA team looked at the model and saw some limitation. It really had to do with, do we have confidence in the thrusters, and how much we could predict their degradation from undock through the deorbit burn?"

Boeing Brass

Originally planned as a week-long jaunt to highlight the embattled manufacturer's spacecraft-building prowess, the Starliner mission's return has repeatedly slipped due to helium leaks and thruster issues. Now, Wilmore and Williams are stranded on the ISS until at least early February, and the decision to return them on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule is one that Boeing does not seem to be taking with a smile.

"Where there's this kind of decision," Stich said, "there is some tension in the room."

Despite the admittedly bad vibes, the commercial crew director is sympathetic to Boeing's stance.

"From a Boeing standpoint," he added, "they certainly know their spacecraft, and they're analyzing risks and what they think the capability is with the one vehicle."

Ultimately, he said, NASA is "in a bit of a different position in terms of our understanding about the risks, and what's available to us without Starliner, so that's also a difference in the opinion."

Stich's description may be phrased diplomatically: last week, the New York Post reported based on anonymous comment from a NASA official that the conversations became "heated" and even involved yelling.

"Boeing was convinced that the Starliner was in good enough condition to bring the astronauts home, and NASA disagreed," the official told the Post. "The thinking around here was that Boeing was being wildly irresponsible."

However severe the situation may truly be, it doesn't sound fun at all — and there's no doubt that there will be more tense talks moving forward, even after Starliner returns to Earth without its precious cargo.

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