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Comment by htrp | Hacker News Reader

> The incident illustrates what NASA officials have been emphasizing about the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, which is more than three weeks into what was expected to be a 10-day Crew Flight Test mission. Starliner is on a test mission with two astronauts and is authorized to leave the ISS in case of emergency. (The other two crewed spacecraft docked to the ISS are a SpaceX Dragon carrying four astronauts, and a Russian Soyuz with three people on board.)

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>what NASA officials have been emphasizing

Anyone understand specifically what this is referring to? I read it several times and I don't see a hint. Normally this phrase would be followed by an explanation like

>this illustrates what Alice has been emphasizing -- that Bob has excellent OpSec

The Boeing Starliner craft has had multiple issues (IIRC 5 separate thrusters not working and at least 2 separate helium leaks) since docking with the ISS. NASA continues to stress that Starliner is authorized to return astronauts to earth in the event of an emergency. NASA, at the same time, delayed the return of said Starliner indefinitely until they can analyze more test data.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/06/nasa-indefinitely-dela...

I don’t see what that has to do with this story, though. Starliner’s issues have nothing to do with the breakup of a satellite nor do the issues affect Starliner’s usage as a shelter.

This article and headline just reek of the author grasping at straws to try and shoehorn Starliner into this story. The headline could’ve easily said “shelter in Soyuz” and nothing would’ve changed about the actual story at hand.

> I don’t see what that has to do with this story, though.

It is noteworthy because the safety/reliability of the Starliner was called into question. The fact that the two Starliner astronauts are still on the ISS means that NASA does not entirely trust the spacecraft. The fact that they sent them to shelter in it is noteworthy because it means that they trust it enough to be used in an emergency. If they would have asked Butch and Suni to shelter instead in the dragon or the soyuz that would have been a serious egg on the face of Boeing.

> nor do the issues affect Starliner’s usage as a shelter

Okay. I think i understand what you might be thinking. Please correct me if I am wrong. It sounds like you think the shelter functions because it is thick and that shields the astronauts. If you have that mental model that would explain why you think that the issues with Starliner does not affect its usage as a shelter. After all the problems with the trusters does not change the spacecraft’s wall thickness.

But this is not the correct mental model. The spacecraft is not sheltering them with its thickness. If they get unlucky orbital debris will cut through Starliner like a hot knife through butter. The real reason they shelter in the spacecraft is that they can use it to land if the station gets hit and they have to abandon it. So the correct mental model is that of a rescue boat, not a debris shield.

And if you are thinking that way it is easy to see how the trusters being less than perfectly reliable hampers the usage of the spacecraft as a shelter (as a rescue boat). It just happens to be that the relative danger posed by the truster problems is smaller (in NASA’s estimate) than the relative danger posed by trying to ride the other spacecrafts down without a seat for the extra astronauts.

No, that isn’t the case at all. The issues with Starliner do not affect its ability to return to earth or function as an “escape pod” if that were necessary. There’s no safety issue or concern at all with using Starliner as a return craft. The issues with Starliner, as has been mentioned many times over the last few weeks, are to do with other parts of Starliner that don’t affect its return (it’s literally the thrusters that aren’t even part of Starliner that _will_ return).

> it’s literally the thrusters that aren’t even part of Starliner that _will_ return

That is cool. How will they deorbit if the thrusters shut down on them? Will they break Fred Flintstones style?

There are something like 28 thrusters on Starliner - only 5 have had issues.

I’m guessing that the fact they are still up at the ISS when they should have returned to Earth at this point.

They are there by choice. The parts of Starliner used in deorbiting are all functional. But the parts that leaked will get discarded and burn up themselves in the atmosphere, which prevents examining them. So the astronauts are hanging around to do that examination while they can.

NASA and Boeing have been battling criticism, fair or unfair you can decide, over how Boeing spent a lot more money and time and sent Starliner to the ISS with a bunch of engine failures and leaks.

So the author went for an awkward attempt at saying "Look how great Starliner is, astronauts are even sheltering in it from all that Russian debris and will fly it back if needed".

> this illustrates what Alice has been emphasizing -- that Bob has excellent OpSec

The answer is below a bit:

> "Starliner [...] is authorized to leave the ISS in case of emergency"

I guess it would be something like:

"As we all know, Bob has had a few slip-ups recently: he leaked his admin credentials in a public github repo, and then he also asked for a salary increase, but we'd like to emphasize that in an emergency Bob is fully authorized to respond to incidents and operate the system"

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