Originally set to return in mid-June, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams may be on the station until February, 2025.

During a press conference today, NASA representatives confirmed they have a contingency plan to bring astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams home from the International Space Station (ISS) early next year. If they’re unable to leave sooner aboard the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that brought them there

Tests conducted at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility pointed to deformed Teflon seals being a potential cause of the Starliner’s thrusters failing, but the agency isn’t expected to make a final decision on whether or not Williams and Wilmore will return using Boeing’s spacecraft until mid-August.

      • wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io
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        3 months ago

        It’s easy to hate on Boeing. Yea, they done f-ed up a few times and upper management made some very poor decisions, but there are 10s of thousands of people who work there and it’s a good manufacturing job in a country that used to pride itself on manufacturing. We can’t all be service workers, and I’d venture that, given the way you present yourself online, you’re probably not someone who is resting on their laurels either.

        Now, back to stocks. It’s also quite simple to throw a slick quip about how the big bad shareholder bogeyman is ruining our country, but, unless you’re among the minority in this country, you likely own some stock in some company, somehow. The shareholders are us.

        But therein gives us a lot of power. Many shares are voting shares. We could, if we all chose to, enact the corporate change we wish to see. And coincidentally enough, there are people precisely doing that kind of good work. Look up the philosophy behind ESG, it is becoming a thing. Or certified B corps. Likewise, many countries require unions to have a seat on their board; unfortunately for now, the US isn’t one of them, but that could change.

        Or, ya know, we could just be dismissive and scapegoat our problems. That’s life, we get to choose our own adventure.