Everyone has noted that this will be the highest-altitude flight since Apollo, but all of the Apollo astronauts were men. Menon and Gillis will hold the altitude record for women after this, until a woman goes to the moon (which may or not be on Artemis, given the ongoing boondoggle).
Lord help us, the new cost estimate of NASA’s Mobile Launcher-2 project is now a mind-boggling $2.7 billion.https://t.co/KE7WZEtcQ5
…has been reassigned. A lot of speculation as to the reason and timing in this thread.
It’s kind of wild that the NASA official who is arguably most responsible for SpaceX getting a commercial crew contract a decade ago is getting pushed out at the same time Dragon saves the agency’s astronauts.https://t.co/IwPeRs1x8T
It’s unclear to me whether he is being blamed for Starliner, or if this is Boeing’s revenge for the NASA decision to rescue with Crew Dragon. But if the latter, it would have been pressure coming from Boeing’s friends on the Hill.
With all the talk a decade ago about how SpaceX wouldn’t deliver and how prudent it was to give the lion’s share of the funds to Boeing, there should be plenty of crow to go around.
[Update a few minutes later]
Boeing was paid billions more than SpaceX to be seven years late on a mission it could not complete . . . And will now be rescued from total disaster by SpaceX
Some may be wondering what I think about the Starliner decision in the context of my book and our need to be willing to accept higher levels of risk. The point of the book was not that we should be reckless, but that the risk must match the reward.
There was no payoff in risking the astronaut's lives to come home in a flawed vehicle, other than to Boeing's pride (which would be an empty vessel by now if they had a smidgen of self awareness) and their bottom line.
I would dispute the phrase “college educated” to describe the people who attended college and who support the Democrats. I’d call them, rather, indoctrinated and credentialed.