Starliner CFT Launches. | Credit: NASA

What a mess!

SpaceX’s Dragon capsule splashed down this week, bringing back with them Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams; astronauts who, I suspect, are currently the most widely known by name. I wish I could say it was for all the right reasons…

It’s been a much longer trip for them than initially anticipated. What was planned to be a week-or-so long mission turned into a 9 month stay at the ISS, due to technical problems with their experimental Starliner spacecraft (developed by Boeing).

No stranger to problems, Starliner had previously gotten lost on the way to the ISS, and experienced reaction control system (RCS) malfunctions. Despite these setbacks, NASA finally concluded it was time to conduct a crewed flight test (CFT), and so spaceflight veterans Butch and Suni were drafted for their services.

I was, from the start, quite pessimistic on the whole Starliner program. Boeing has had a pretty poor track record delivering this project, with cost overruns and a myriad of technical setbacks making me wary of any human getting on board in the first place. Coupled with the fact that SpaceX has already delivered numerous humans to the ISS, its hard for me to see why Starliner should be given any more time in the oven.

Frankly, it’s been a bit of an embarrassment for Boeing.

Unfortunately, the technical problems faced by this endeavour have been overshadowed by something even more nefarious and evil.

Politics.

I want to use this weeks article to dispel three of the biggest misunderstandings/factual inaccuracies I’ve seen, and give you all the overview that best represents what truly happened.

Myth #1: “Butch and Suni were stranded!”

This first topic comes courtesy of the frankly shocking reporting by some major news outlets on this saga. So many people who asked me about this got the impression that Butch and Suni were unable to return home at all. Some people even got the impression that the astronauts were stuck in their capsule, floating around completely unassisted. A sampling of the headlines that drove such a story include the following:

• NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams return to Earth after 9 months stuck in space (Associated Press)
• US astronauts stranded on ISS for nine months to return to Earth on Tuesday, Nasa says (The Guardian)
• NASA reveals what’s next for astronauts safely back on Earth after nine months stuck in space (Sky News)

Its not hard to see, in my opinion, that these headlines give the impression that there was no way at all to bring Butch and Suni home, which is simply untrue. The ISS operates multiple spacecraft that can be used as a ferry in the event of an emergency, so there was never any real danger to the astronauts.

A Soyuz spacecraft docked to the ISS. Can be used as an “escape pod” in the event of an emergency. | Credit: NASA

Some would say:

“Just read the article, you can’t blame people for getting the wrong idea from a headline.”

I fundamentally disagree. These publications know better than anyone that many people will just read headlines and not the article. It is the responsibility of these organisations to publish factually accurate headlines that don’t mislead. Here, I’ll give it a go:

• NASA astronauts to spend additional time aboard ISS, due to Starliner safety concerns. (Me)

See? Not difficult.

At the end of the day, the idea that NASA would leave astronauts completely stranded is laughable. This brings us onto the next myth.

Myth #2: “NASA left them up there for political reasons!”

For some inexplicable reason, Elon Musk decided to drop this now infamous claim in an interview with Fox News, saying that:

“they [Butch and Suni] were left up there for political reasons, which is not good.”

What “political reasons” even means is never explained, nor has any documentation come to surface verifying the accuracy of this statement. As someone who requires evidence for claims, I outright reject this idea. Saying something in an interview does not constitute valid evidence in my books.

In addition to this, during an interview with Butch, he states outright that:

“from my standpoint, politics is not playing into this at all.”

Fair enough!

Astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore. | Credit: Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo

It may very well be true that Elon Musk made an offer to bring back Butch and Suni early, but was rejected. I would believe that. However, I also believe that NASA would reject such expenditure for the simple reason that it is completely unnecessary, not because of politics. This brings us to the final myth.

Myth #3: Elon Musk was able to expedite the return once Donald Trump became President.

No.

This I find is one of the more egregious myths. It is pretty much a straight up lie.

Once it was determined that Starliner was too risky for Butch and Suni to return to Earth in, they were folded onto a standard ISS crew rotation.

On the ISS, crews are rotated around every six-or-so months. By assigning Butch and Suni to this rotation, NASA could avoid any unnecessary expenditure and keep the schedule of incoming and outgoing spacecraft largely untouched. The ISS has a limited number of docking ports, and shuffling the schedule around to fit in an unnecessary “rescue” mission would cause significant logistical issues.

Crew-9 was the next flight to reach the ISS, and so Butch and Suni would use this spacecraft to return. This would mean that they would stay on the ISS until the astronauts on Crew-9 finished their mission, as to avoid complicating the schedule and requiring an additional unplanned spacecraft.

This solution was announced on August 24th 2024, months before Donald Trump became President. The Crew-9 schedule remained untouched once the election cycle was over, and as such, Butch and Suni returned exactly as was planned 7 months prior.

In my opinion, this claim comes down to a simple desire to score political points, and has absolutely no basis whatsoever in reality.

Infographic detailing how Butch and Suni came to return aboard Crew-9. | Credit: Ken Kirtland.

Now that’s cleared up…

I really hope that politics stays out of spaceflight from now on. It is clear to me that the partisan hand of political party punditry can only damage the public perception and trust in spaceflight. Claims that are completely unfounded and not based in reality have no place in the world of space exploration. I want to see this industry push the boundaries of human achievement and learn more about the universe, not be used as a pawn for someone’s short-sighted agenda.

See you next week!