KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Starliner launched on June 5 with astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore, a Tennessee native, and Sunita "Suni" Williams. The pair are veterans of spaceflight and spent a combined 500 days in space before this launch.
NASA is now deciding whether to bring the pair back on the Starliner spacecraft or send a SpaceX spacecraft with two empty seats in late September. Wilmore and Williams would have to stay on the ISS for six months with the SpaceX astronauts, waiting for a chance to return to Earth.
NASA said it will make a decision by mid-August.
John Schmisseur, the executive director of the University of Tennessee Space Institute, said NASA's engineers are the best in the field. He said while the trip has lasted longer than expected, Wilmore and Williams are professionals. He also said engineers are approaching the situation with an abundance of caution prioritizing safety over speed.
"They used to talk about NASA wanting four or six "nines" reliability — meaning that everything was to go off without a hitch to the 0.999999 reliability," he said. "NASA is meticulous in the things they undertake and I'm sure that there are multiple backup plans. There's probably backup plans for the backup plans."
He said the systems NASA and Boeing use are incredibly complex. Even with testing, there's no telling when a part will fail.
"You can test an individual component, you can make sure that component is going to be reliable, but then you have to insert it and connect it to another component. And then you have to test that those components interact well with each other. And eventually, you have an incredibly complicated system," he said.
Schmisseur said he understands speculation from people watching as the astronauts remain in space, but he said judgment should be reserved for how they fix the problem and get the crew back quickly and safely.