More bad news for the stranded American astronauts
As you may have read before in our blogs the story of the two American astronauts trapped in outer space seems to be turning into a frustrating affair, a saga with no end in sight and more empty promises from NASA.
Let’s try to wrap our heads around a ludicrous, yet potential incident in which your employer sends you on a job that will last nine days, and somehow you find yourself stuck there for months. And then even more months?! Truthfully, who wouldn’t feel frustrated?
This is exactly what happened to the American astronauts. In July 2024, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams set off on a nine-day test mission to the International Space Station on a Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
The Starliner successfully docked with the ISS. But sadly, the problems and odyssey of the two astronauts had just begun.
First, NASA announced that the return of the astronauts was being delayed for a few days. As more time passed, the issue kept on not being solved and stretched for weeks, months…
Then, in a risky autumn mission, the Starliner successfully landed on Earth, but without the crew! Why?
Officially, this was done for safety reasons.
The return of Wilmore and Williams was then postponed for a couple extra months. SpaceX came to the rescue, and with its Crew Dragon spacecraft, these two space “flying Dutchmen” were to return to Earth in February of the following year (2025) as additional passengers.
All this meant a considerable reorganization of the crew rotation on the ISS, as well as of Crew Dragon itself.
But Wilmore and Williams won’t go home even in February!
Due to technical issues surrounding the launch of the new Crew Dragon, their return was once again delayed. The nine-day space mission from July this year will be extended by another month, to more than nine months!
If everything goes well, the fliers could reach Earth in March 2025 at the earliest.
Stating the raw facts, we might slip and side with opinions stating that such an unintended and unplanned mission of this peculiar type is important for gaining the experience of people staying and working in space. Futuristically thinking.
Science might stand strongly behind this argument, but as mortals we can’t help feeling bad for the humans who didn’t exactly sign up for the extent of delays happening. Of course, the idea of going into space is never bullet-proof.
But as prepared as they may be, even for the worst of worst scenario, this is a higher level of hopelessness.
Sadly, this is not the first time that the return of astronauts from space has been delayed. American astronaut Frank Rubio and two Russian colleagues, cosmonauts, also had to wait for the return from space due to problems with the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
While launch delays are not uncommon, space recovery delays are.
All this is in strict compliance with safety procedures. At this point, we dare to say that this is what the public is being told, but the details remain hazy.
As a heavy reminder: due to the neglect of safety protocols and technical problems swept “under the carpet” in the space shuttle era, the Americans already lost two spaceships and a total of fourteen of their astronauts were killed in the past!
In the end, we hope that the next time we address this topic it will be one with a triumphant theme.
As stated previously, we are still hopeful that Wilmore and Williams will soon return to Earth safely with no additional delays announced by NASA regarding this gloomy situation. Fingers crossed!
