It also led to some interesting improvisations. NASA has a requirement that there be a 'lifeboat' on the ISS for all crew in case of an emergency, but because of the Boeing crew (and the lack of a corresponding vessel), NASA approved a new 'configuration' of the Dragon where up to 3 people could strap themselves to the floor of it, where cargo would normally go, in case of the need of a mass escape from the ISS. [2]
As another fun aside, when the Starliner was returning [autonomously] to Earth it experienced two more errors, unrelated to the ones that left the astronauts stranded on the ISS in the first place. What a vessel.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-9
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Crew_Flight_Test#Uncrew...
This continues to be silly. There were changes to Crew 9, last summer, when it was decided that it would be logistically easier for two (instead of four) astronauts to go up and the two Boeing crew would come down with them on the Crew 9 craft in February/March 2025 (that would be now). This has always been the plan, the only politics being injected here are people insisting on grandstanding and making drama where there is none.
You can disagree with the decision (though, again, why), but it was a decision. There was no dereliction of duty, no stranding of astronauts since September, and this was not some high-stakes rescue.
It's a simple, parsimonious explanation for everything that has happened since. Nonetheless, we apparently have to talk about it.
I wonder how many people expressing strong opinions don't even understand that there were intentionally empty seats.
Yes, four astronauts arrived on Saturday on Crew 10 and are there now.
edit: They came down on the scheduled Crew 9 craft, which, as the linked caption says, has been docked and waiting at the space station since September.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39474840 NASA will retire the ISS soon (npr.org) Feb 22, 2024
Also a large difference to all of NASA’s international partners who might lose out on astronaut slots, scientists with experiments that won’t be ran, dozens of contractor companies supporting ISS, etc.
The more you knew about this, the more you'd be okay with it. The station was obsolete before it was even built. NASA likes to justify the space station as a laboratory studying the effects of longterm space flight on humans; the results were in decades ago: it fucks people up. Human bodies begin to deteriorate in microgravity, even one year isn't healthy and there's nothing we can do about it. No exercise regime can fix it, the only possible solution is a station which spins. This was known before the ISS was built, but they didn't build a spin station. They built Mir 2, using the Soviet DOS-8 module. Mir 1 had the DOS-7 module, the previous modules were the Salyut stations. When the Soviets got tooled up to build something they liked to keep building it forever, and that's what happened here. The Salyut stations came from a period in time when space stations actually had a rational purpose; being a platform for humans to take reconnaissance photos of other countries. This role was quickly made obsolete by recon satellites, but the Soviets were tooled up to build them so they kept at it, while the equivalent systems in America were canceled. If you're familiar with Robert Crippen, the computer specialist and nominal pilot of STS-1, you'll know that he was originally training for operation with the Manned Orbital Laboratory before joining NASA. That was America's Soyuz. It was canceled when satellites proved their capabilities. The Soviets started using satellites but kept their station program anyway, due to the wonderful efficiencies of their system.
NASA tried to use space stations as a justification for continuing Apollo levels of funding (Skylab) but that didn't work out for them and American apace station activities ended there. Some Americans were later sent to Mir and found it to be in a horrific state, a veritable death trap that got lucky on numerous occasions.
The only reason America got involved with Mir 2, rechristening it as the ISS, is because America wanted to prop up the Russian space industry to prevent total collapse and a subsequent diaspora of talent to less friendly nations. It is at least not quite as dangerous as Mir 1, but it's still a dead end technology that serves no genuine scientific purpose, with a political justification which is now just as obsolete.
But the science experiments! How could I have forgotten something so important. All kinds of very important pharmaceutical science or something, I am told. So important, that when companies fielding proposals for replacement stations go looking for customers, they come up empty. NASA wants commercial partners for the next station but the whole thing is a slowly unfolding boondoggle.
Edit to add: Starship isn't going to Mars. Its a satellite launcher surrounded by aspirational propaganda to keep young engineers motivated. And Lunar Gateway, originally the "Deep Space Gateway" before Artemis came up, is meant to exist only to give ISS mission control staff new jobs when the ISS is gone. Soviet style pork.