NASA just caved to Elon Musk and threw woke Boeing under the bus…

Look. SpaceX has a proven track record for fixing things on the fly.  That takes superb engineering leadership.

At least NASA got it together to make this decision because their failure now could start the process of winding NASA down.

This way the best team comes on board.  While they have struggled SpaceX has stolen march after march.

You know that a county full of farm boys will throw up a kid up for the big jobs every few years or so.  You never parachute in second tier talent for political reasons unless you want failure.  What is wrong with our leadership.

NASA just caved to Elon Musk and threw woke Boeing under the bus…

August 26, 2024 (a day ago)

NASA has become a laughing stock. The once highly respected organization has tumbled off its pedestal, just like so many other so-called “experts” these days. We’ve learned the hard way that the people we were told knew everything are, in reality, mostly politically-driven puppets, taking orders from those with more power. Most of these organizations and companies that are floundering have one thing in common: they’ve embraced the left’s failed progressive and woke culture.

Companies like NASA and Boeing have bought into DEI hiring practices, tossing excellence aside in favor of charity-driven hires who don’t have a clue what they’re doing.

NASA has decided the lives of two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station will be in SpaceX’s hands after weeks of intense deliberation and serious safety concerns.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson made the announcement during a press conference on Saturday at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The two astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, have been on the ISS for 11 weeks. Their mission was originally supposed to last eight days.

The ordeal began when five of Starliner’s 28 reaction control system thrusters failed as it traveled to the ISS in June. The spacecraft’s helium system was also leaking.

Mission controllers have been working to resolve the issues and test the spacecraft ever since in the hopes they — and not someone else — could safely bring the astronauts home.

NASA leadership held an internal meeting earlier today to review whether Williams and Wilmore could safely return to Earth on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft or if they should rely on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon instead.

“I want you to know that Boeing has worked very hard with NASA to get the necessary data to make this decision,” Nelson said. “We want to further understand the root causes and understand the design improvements so that the Boeing Starliner will serve as an important part of our assured crew access to the ISS.”

Elon’s SpaceX is being called in to clean up Boeing’s mess, and everyone knows it. Is this the final nail in Boeing’s coffin? Will they finally be forced back to the drawing board to undo the failed and dangerous DEI policies they’ve embraced? The Business Insider piece continues:

During a July press conference, a NASA official acknowledged that relying on SpaceX to retrieve the astronauts was an option but declined to provide details.

NASA confirmed its SpaceX backup plan this month and postponed the company’s next launch to September 24. The delay allows Wilmore and Williams to fly home with the SpaceX crew on its four-person spacecraft in February, about eight months later than their initial schedule.

The SpaceX plan isn’t without risks.

NEW: Boeing & NASA are forced to rely on Elon Musk’s Space X to save the day as two astronauts are stranded on the International Space Station.

The astronauts will *not* return on Boeing’s troubled Starliner & will instead be returning on a SpaceX capsule.

Unfortunately for astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, they may be stuck until 2025.

“This is a real blow to Boeing that has suffered its own woes with the 737. As well as NASA’s reputation at stake,” Fox News reported.

“NASA and Boeing were doing this Starliner [but] they’re now having to call Elon Musk to save the day.”

The New York Post is reporting that Boeing’s employees are now “humiliated.” Given that those two astronauts are still stuck in outer space, perhaps they should feel humiliated.

Boeing employees are “humiliated” after NASA announced that two astronauts who have been stranded on the International Space Station by the company’s troubled Starliner space capsule will have to be rescued by Elon Musk’s upstart rival SpaceX, one worker told The Post.

[…]

The Florida-based staffer with Boeing’s space program said the decision was the latest blow for the aerospace giant, which is already suffering backlash from a slew of commercial flight incidents earlier this year.

[…]

“We have had so many embarrassments lately, we’re under a microscope. This just made it, like, 100 times worse,” one worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said.

“We hate SpaceX,” he added. “We talk s–t about them all the time, and now they’re bailing us out.”

“It’s shameful. I’m embarrassed, I’m horrified,” the employee said.

With morale “in the toilet,” the worker claimed that many in Boeing are blaming NASA for the humiliation.

Boeing maintains its Starliner craft could safely get the astronauts back to Earth after putting them on the ISS during its maiden crewed flight on June 5.

However, NASA decided to turn to SpaceX for help after more than two months of testing the craft, which is still docked at the ISS.

Recently, Revolver covered this incredible story—the ultimate failure of both NASA and Boeing—two companies that have fallen so far from grace that they’re basically unrecognizable at this point.

Boeing’s ill-fated Starliner program has been in the works since 2010, making the project nearly 15 years old. The idea of the Starliner was to develop a spacecraft and space capsule capable of taking astronauts and space tourists alike to the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit. The first Orbital Test Flight did not take place until 2019, almost 10 years later, and it was a spectacular failure as a “software error” forced the test launch to abort prematurely. Numerous failures, billions of dollars, and years later, the Starliner managed to dock successfully in an unmanned mission to the International Space Station in May 2022. After multiple delays, Starliner’s third manned flight to the space station took off on June 5th of this year and was scheduled to return on June 14th, barely more than a week later. As of the time of this writing, it is August 6th, and the Starliner has still not returned, leaving two astronauts effectively stranded on the International Space Station on account of thruster problems, helium leakages, and a whole host of other difficulties. How embarrassing!

As mentioned above, there is a decent chance that Boeing will have to have their competitor, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, rescue the stranded astronauts with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. NASA’s Associate Administrator William Gerstenmeier gushed about how excellent Boeing’s Starliner proposal was, enthusiastically approving Starliner’s $4.2 billion contract compared to SpaceX’s $2.6 billion contract. Ironically, Gerstenmeier currently works at SpaceX as Vice President of Build and Reliability. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has had multiple successful crewed missions (including return trips) spanning all the way back to May of 2020.

It is worth taking a step back and noting how pathetic this situation is. On Boeing’s side, we have a decade-long multibillion-dollar failure to even accomplish a successful crewed round trip to the International Space Station in low-earth orbit. Think about that in relation to the fact that over half a century ago, NASA accomplished multiple manned missions to the moon using slide-rule technology.

There is perhaps no better symbol for the decline of America than the failure of our once great space program, which is why we at Revolver have followed these failures quite closely.

There was the James Webb Telescope, designed to replace the legendary Cold War-era Hubble telescope. While the James Webb Telescope is successfully launched in space, the saga leading up to this launch is instructive. Indeed, the James Webb Telescope was 14 years late and a whopping 20 times the original budget!

Our fascinating piece dives deep into the downfall of Boeing and, by extension, NASA. Click here to read the full article:

Boeing and NASA have both strayed to the dark side, where failed progressive ideas and policies go to die, dragging these two major US companies down with them. The question now is whether they can save themselves by making an about-face and returning to traditional business values—or is it already too late? Time will tell, and we’ll be watching closely.