By all accounts, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has been nothing short of a disaster. It’s cost NASA a staggering amount of money, and even after over a decade of development, the capsule still has yet to complete a crewed mission to the International Space Station.
It’s been a humiliating saga, including a failed uncrewed launch attempt that went haywire thanks to a glitching computer, an aborted mission which stranded two NASA astronauts on board the station for nine months, and a litany of technical headaches along the way.
But now that SpaceX is threatening to retire its Crew Dragon spacecraft, NASA could soon be forced to make the plagued spacecraft work whether it likes to or not — while also calling into question its entire access to space.
“I do not think it’s a secret that SpaceX intends to sunset older platforms like Falcon and Dragon as they concentrate on their next-generation capability, Starship,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters on Monday.
