NASA is going to try and land the Starliner (unmanned) next week. What are the chances it lands safely, versus blowing up?

Just got to say if I were the astronauts and supposed to be up there for a week and there was a SNAFU and I was going to beup for several months instead, I would be so pissed off! I don’t trust Boeing for much of anything these days although unfortunately, I have to fly on them.

I hope it burns up.

It is probably going to burn up.

I thought they could not undock from International Space Station without there being people in the Starliner, maybe the Boeing reprogrammed it.

The chances of success aren’t high enough to risk putting people on board. It must be scary for the people stranded on the space station. I hope it goes well.

We’ll see but those astronauts are in trouble if you asked me. They have no lifeboat in the middle of a solar maximum.

I heard on the news that they’re going to be up there till February. I’m sure they’re not saying anything negative to the reporters, because they’re diplomatic, but I am guessing that they are not very happy to miss a whole summer and now the holidays. I am also guessing that they are somewhat nervous about their fate.

Nah, I’m sure they are thrilled to get to stay in space. They are astronauts. That is what they live for.

No one knows the real odds. In reality, no one really knows the actual odds.

NASA has the most educated guesses, and the information they have is detailed and complex and has different perspectives such that even if their estimates were entirely accurate, there would not be one number one could give as odds.

NASA also of course tries to get the odds of disaster as close to zero as possible.

But the times something goes very wrong, with spaceflight or even ordinary transportation disasters, generally involve multiple things going wrong, most of which were not expected.

^^ Except for in the case of the Challenger. Sadly, that was one thing.

My understanding is that the spacecraft has issues with thrusters that control attitude.
I have heard of other issues, but that was the only problem made public.
It seems like those thrusters have more to do with docking/undocking, than reentry.

Neil Degrasse Tyson has a 17ish minute video on YouTube about this. I watched it last night. I highly recommend it.
Neil agreed with Loli.
As far as this likely being a positive experience for the astronauts involved.
It’s VERY hard, to get to space.
They get to hang out, for way more time now.

As far as the craft landing, I’d rather they crash it into the ocean. Or Russia…

The story keeps changing. About 2 weeks ago it was announced on the news that the SpaceX Dragon was in the process of bringing them home. Wonder what changed that didn’t get reported???

@LadyMarissa
The dragon capsule is still the plan. It just will not be ready until next year.

^^ Yeah, I’ve been hearing for a while that they will be up there for months.

Hope they get paid by Boeing Per Diem !

I heard February.

It’ll come down fine. Then people will be all upset that they wasted time worrying about it.