Starliner’s delay

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 13th of August. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Before we get started today, I want to tell you about an opportunity for families with school-age kids.

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Stories like this one from yesterday…

AUDIO: Remember these two? Astronauts Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore climbed aboard the International Space Station in early June…

To watch the rest of that story and to get three months of World Watch on the house, visit: worldwatch.news/radio.

BUTLER: And speaking of astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore, up first on today’s program, stuck in space.

AUDIO: …three, two, one. Ignition.

EICHER: Back in June, NASA successfully launched an Atlas rocket with a Boeing Starliner capsule on top carrying the two astronauts. On their way to the ISS several helium tanks sprang leaks, and a few of the maneuvering thrusters went offline. The crew was planning a return trip 8 days later, but NASA delayed that flight until it could figure out what went wrong.

SCOTT HUBBARD: A crew delayed or stuck on the space station is uncommon.

BUTLER: Scott Hubbard is former Director of NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. He says being stranded on the Space Station is nothing like being in a lifeboat.

HUBBARD: They've got water, food, air. Station is a very well-supplied place these days. They're kind of stuck because their ride isn't fully approved for return.

EICHER: Boeing says it believes in Starliner’s ability to return home safely. But NASA on Wednesday said it’s working on a backup plan. It involves bringing the astronauts home on a SpaceX flight early next year.

BUTLER: What does this disagreement mean for private-sector partnerships in space? Joining us now to talk about it is Michelle Hanlon. She’s a law professor at the University of Mississippi. Her speciality is air and space law.

Michelle, good morning.

MICHELLE HANLON: Good morning. Paul, thanks for having me here.

BUTLER: Well, let's start with a big picture kind of question. How did we get from the Space Shuttle Program to NASA now working with companies like Boeing and SpaceX?

HANLON: So, it's actually been a progression. We've been supporting commercial space. It's been the U.S. government policy to support commercial space since Ronald Reagan, really. And each president has supported that, primarily because space is really expensive. And we've seen entrepreneurs can do it more cheaply, and we've seen that in gangbusters with SpaceX. And so what, when we came off the shuttle program and started thinking about, of course, you know, we had no flights to Space Station except through the Russians. And so, it was really a sort of a true gift to be able to have a commercial entity in Space X, be able to take our astronauts there, so we didn't have to rely on the Russians.

BUTLER: So from your position, how have Space X and Boeing done so far in meeting their contracts with NASA.

HANLON: I mean, it's very clear that SpaceX has had multiple trips to Space Station with cargo and with humans, and Starliner Boeing's first attempt has stranded two humans. Stranded might be too strong a word, but has left two humans on Space Station a little bit longer than intended. They were thought to be there just for eight days, and now rumor has it, they might not come back till 2025. For the record, I would note, I think both of those astronauts are very happy to stay up there as long as possible. So, I think it's hard to be a bystander and look at these metrics, right? It's very easy to applaud the success of SpaceX and sort of kick Boeing when it's down. Boeing has not had a good decade between the Boeing Max and these issues with Starliner. But you know, Boeing is a tried and true. Boeing got us to the moon the first time. I wouldn't count Boeing out at this point, and I hope that the government continues to support them.

BUTLER: You know, when this news first broke, I remember seeing a lot of social media posts about it, and, you know, I was just wondering, wow, people seem to be piling on. Boeing. Do you feel like that attention is unmerited?

HANLON: Absolutely. You know, when we look at every time there's a flight goes down, right, we don't, we don't, the general public doesn't really understand, you know, who was doing the maintenance, what was the issue? There's a lot of things that go into making a plane work properly. So I'm not saying Boeing is off the hook for the Boeing Max. Absolutely not. But some of the other issues that we're seeing, you know, there's a lot of parties and a lot of players involved. With respect to Starliner, you know, I mean, the jump to this sort of conclusion that the Starliner is broken and it's unsafe and so forth. I actually, I'm going to throw a little bit of blame around here, and I'm going to blame NASA a little bit. The, there's been a lack of transparency. There's been a lack of, I don't want to call it honesty, but, you know, I call it the the creep. When you're at an airport and the airline says, "Oh, we'll be delayed 10 minutes," and then 10 minutes later they say, we'll be delayed another 20 minutes, and then 20 minutes later, we'll be delayed 10 more minutes, and you end up being delayed five hours. But you're told in these little drips and drops, and I feel like that's what NASA has been doing with Boeing. There's a much bigger picture that there are a lot of smart people at NASA looking at, but they're sort of trickling out this news to the general public, and that's really not helpful for Boeing in this particular situation.

BUTLER: So why do you think they're doing it that way?

HANLON: I think two things. I think that they are a very cautious agency. You know, when if you look back in history, they're the only space agency other than Roscosmos who have lost humans in space. And of course, more humans have been sent by NASA to space than any other, but it's still, it's a burden, and they don't want to be the ones to bring danger, again, to humans in space. They're also operating under this cloud of Shuttle, you know, going back and looking at what happened with the Shuttle missions, understanding what mistakes were made, understanding where decision points went wrong. I think we're in a major sort of overthink of, okay, you know, we need to learn from history. What did we learn from Shuttle? And we have a lot of people in the room giving opinions, giving thoughts, worrying and so forth. But I think fundamentally, look. those two humans, they are safe where they are right now. They are happy where they are right now. What is the point of risking their lives if we don't have all the answers? We have time this time. This isn't Apollo 13, "They only have a certain amount of oxygen," right? We have time. So let's do it right. Let's let's all sort of step back, breathe in deeply, and wait and see if we can fix it.

BUTLER: So with the Starliner capsule not working at full capacity, what do you think NASA will do next? Are they going to accept Boeing's assessment that it will get the job done? Or do you think they'll turn to someone like SpaceX for help?

HANLON: So, the government, particularly this administration, really doesn't like monopolies. So, I think if it's not Boeing, then we're going to find another, and that's an important thing to do. You know, we don't want SpaceX to own all of launch into low Earth orbit and beyond. And so there are a lot of companies starting out rocket launches. There are companies that are focused on small sat but may be able to convert later. You know, I think that a lot of money has been invested in Boeing, and as a taxpayer, I would say, "Hey, let's stick with them," because they have a history. They do have, they have made mistakes, but they can overcome those. And right now, there is no competitor even close to SpaceX. You know, we're waiting to see what capacity Blue Origin has, but they haven't been able to show anything at this point either.

BUTLER: Michelle Hanlon is a professor and Executive Director of the Air and Space Law Program at the University of Mississippi School of Law. Michelle, thanks so much for joining us today.

HANLON: Thank you, Paul.

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