They weren’t stranded, they aren’t stranded, their mission was changed and extended when Starliner failed its last test mid-flight.

Butch and Suni are slated to return on CRS10, which is scheduled for March 12, a couple of weeks ahead of the previous date.

Oh, so they can return home anytime they want to?


Changing the dates on my return flight tickets from Frankfurt that evening didn't make me any less stranded when the 747 failed its last test at the gate.

That's playing a meaningless sematic game.

The spaceship, that was intended to take them home, didn't. A 2 week mission is now going to be 9 months because there is no reasonable way to bring them home sooner.

That's "stranded".

Mike C.

Mike, how you’ve come around from chiding me over that very word back at the start!

Nobody on the ISS can come home anytime they want to, they come home when NASA or Roscosmos says to. If NASA wanted them home earlier they’d have a Dragon up there to pick them up. That didn’t make sense and so it didn’t happen.

Nobody is stranded up there any more than the others on the station. Just because you didn’t get the flight you wanted out of EDFF doesn’t mean that you were stranded. There are trains, cars, cruise ships, and your two feet. Inconvenienced ≠ stranded.

But they generally come home when they expect to so they know what they are signing up for.


If you go on a 2 week vacation and can't go home for 9 months, even if you like the place, that's still well beyond being "inconvenienced".

There are significant health impacts from 9 months in space. 371 days is the longest contiguous time any NASA astronaut has been in space and the Starliner crew will reach almost 3/4 of that time.

The bottom line is the capsule failed and they didn't get to go home to their lives for that period of time.

Mike C.

They're NASA astronauts, not Cub Scouts and this isn't summer camp. They signed up for everything up to and including a fiery death. This is a minor inconvenience.

Is there some reason you feel the need to minimize the impact of being unexpectedly 9 months off planet? Some sort of denial of the seriousness of this?

I am pretty sure they did NOT sign up for that as the expected outcome, and they certainly didn't sign up for a fiery death. They trusted the Boeing engineers had done their jobs, which turned out to not be the case.

Mike C.

The February 4, 2025 issue of The New Yorker magazine includes an interesting article by a physician about the effects of space and zero G on the human body: Can the Human Body Endure a Voyage to Mars?

If you haven't visited the New Yorker website frequently in the last month, you should be able to read it online.

can you give us the gist of it?

Is there some reason you feel the need to minimize the impact of being unexpectedly 9 months off planet? Some sort of denial of the seriousness of this?

I am pretty sure they did NOT sign up for that as the expected outcome, and they certainly didn't sign up for a fiery death. They trusted the Boeing engineers had done their jobs, which turned out to not be the case.

Microgravity is extremely hard on the human body. Loss of bone density, muscle mass, ocular damage... Our bodies do not like to be in a weightless environment and the longer we are there, the more we deteriorate. That said, several records extend beyond a year, with the longest held by Valeri Poliyakov at around 14 months.

The New Yorker article describes many effects beyond those usually discussed. It's well worth a read.

No one is forced to be an astronaut, it is something that people choose because its important to them. They may not know the specific risk on any flight but they do know that they have chosen what is probably the world's most dangerous career.

They have courage, and dedication to something they believe in. We admire and honor astronauts because of the courage it takes to do what they do.

Boeing seems to have screwed up, but but I don't feel bad for the astronauts.







Is there some reason you feel the need to minimize the impact of being unexpectedly 9 months off planet? Some sort of denial of the seriousness of this?

I am pretty sure they did NOT sign up for that as the expected outcome, and they certainly didn't sign up for a fiery death. They trusted the Boeing engineers had done their jobs, which turned out to not be the case.

Mike C.

The point is, how many people got extended visits to the ISS due to Dragon issues?

Those people GOT STRANDED. It is a huge deal? Not really, but not what was planned.