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Comment by ravjo | Hacker News Reader

To add some context: the astronauts are not "stranded" in space. They are in the international space station. They were supposed to get back on this capsule after a few days stay, but they are now expected to stay in the ISS and get back only in February on SpaceX capsule/vehicle.

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That is the definition of being stranded. They wouldn't have stayed back if they could have gone with the vehicle.

Nobody is stranded. At no time does NASA not have a plan to evacuate the space station if there's an emergency. There's currently 7 people aboard and 5 space craft docked, all of which can carry multiple people, all of which can be used to get people off the station.

In an emergency, can they really prep and launch a rocket quickly? Are we talking hours/days/week/months?

There is no emergency that would require launching a rocket. They have craft docked to the space station at all times that they can return to Earth on at a moment’s notice.

And they are not using one of those because…

Because more than 2 of them would need to come back to Earth.

I thought about this overnight and isn’t the real problem that nobody is saying is that NASA never wants less than 1 re-entry module on even an empty ISS, so that if god forbid they had to evacuate everyone for any reason other than a dead station, that the next crew has two ways to get home?

So even though everyone fits in the existing modules there is no spare if they let these two go home.

Yes exactly.

No they don't. Dragon takes 4, Soyuz takes 3, 9 people on the ISS, none of the other pods are rated for crewed missions.

Dragon can carry an extra two if necessary in an emergency.

You’re describing a plan for how to deal with stranded astronauts. If I’m on a road trip and my car breaks down at a gas station, I’m stranded. Even if there are other people and other cars at the gas station, and even if I still have access to emergency services, and even if I have a plan for how to deal with being stranded at a gas station.

I think some of us have a different (and perhaps colloquial) definition of stranded. Like, on a deserted island with no practical way home until some random ship happens to come by.

Stranded means you have no means for moving from where you are, or really no practical/acceptable means (you could swim off a deserted island for instance, but that probably wouldn't be considered a practical means of moving off the island).

Boeing has stranded these astronauts on the ISS because it has no (acceptable) means of bringing them down, and the astronauts themselves have no personal means for doing so. If they want to become un-stranded then somebody will need to arrange the means for them to come down.

That doesn't mean that it's impossible for somebody else to provide those means, or that the means simply don't exist in any capacity. But they meet both the dictionary and common colloquial definition of stranded.

Not if you all know you all share the same destination

There's 9 people on board the ISS right now. The Dragon can take 4. The Suyoz can take 3. The other capsules are not designed for crew.

That's not context. It's apologia and Boeing propaganda. An 8 day mission turning into a 6 month mission that can only end because a completely different company brings them home is the definition of "stranded".

That's like saying that after 9/11 when all flights were grounded and you, as a New Yorker, weren't "stranded" in London because, hey, you could always row a boat back. It's such a weird and meaningless semantic defense.

Why are you defending Boeing here?

Had zero intentions of defending Boeing (or anyone else) here. I made a mistake about the meaning of “stranded” in my comment. What I should have said is “they are not stranded in space like how the two main characters in the film ‘Gravity’ were stranded”. Mistake made, lessons learnt. Apologies.

What's their designated lifeboat now that the Boeing is gone?

AFAIK Crew Dragon Endeavour has been retrofitted with six seats and could (suboptimally?) evacuate the six astronauts on the ISS.

"Seats" is a bit generous. They'd be strapped to the cargo palettes behind the seats, without flight suits. Definitely sub-optimal.

A few minutes of discomfort to save a life - seems OK to me.

On United, that's called "Premium Economy".

I thought they found one flight suit. Can they not use it in the cargo area?

As per the article, the SpaceX vehicle due for launch later this month will only carry two of the four astronauts originally planned. The two empty seats will be used by the two delayed-return astronauts when the vehicle returns in February.

That's the intended return vehicle, but "lifeboat" refers to how they will get home if they suddenly need to leave the station due to an emergency now (before the SpaceX vehicle launches).

The answer is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41470523

I don't think nasa has a concept of "lifeboat" considering there are not enough seats for everyone currently in the iss.

They're supposed to, between NASA, private US, and Russia. I was asking if that's currently being violated.

Define stranded please?

https://xkcd.com/2978/

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