Elon Musk to the rescue!

When there’s no NASA ship, 

In the neighborhood,

Who you gonna call?

ELON MUSK!

Graphic: Ghostbustermobile. Wiwkimedia Commons.org. CCASA 2.0 Generic. 

OK, so it doesn’t have quite the rhythmic/poetic snap of the Ghostbusters theme song, but they didn’t have to fly into space and back. On June 5, 2024, Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore did:  

Graphic: NASA. Public Domain.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are safely in orbit on the first crewed flight test aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft bound for the International Space Station.

As part of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, the astronauts lifted off at 10:52 a.m. EDT Wednesday on a ULA (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on an end-to-end test of the Starliner system.

They were supposed to stay at the International Space Station (ISS) for only eight days, but unfortunately they flew into space in a Boeing product, the new “Starliner” which turned out to be a “Barely to the ISS and Barely Backliner.”

It turns out the Starliner had a defective thruster system, which is kind of important for spacecraft. If it’s not working properly the ship can’t maneuver in space, which means it can’t dock with the ISS. Fortunately, they somehow managed to pull that off, but they knew they had a big problem, bigger than NASA has admitted. It’s likely a minor miracle Williams and Wilmore made it to the ISS.

Thereafter began weeks of trying to figure out what was wrong with the Starliner but to no avail. NASA managed to figure out the thrusters were so unreliable they’d better not risk Williams and Wilmore in a reentry attempt. If the thrusters can’t maneuver the ship into exactly the proper orientation at precisely the right time, the Starliner and whoever was in it would make a pretty, fiery streak across the sky as they burned up on reentry to the atmosphere. Even if they somehow made it without immolating, there would probably be so much damage they’d crash into the ground at terminal velocity with the same, deadly result for the astronauts. In other words, kind of like Boeing’s current atmospheric-only products.

The Starliner left with our astronauts and did manage to make it back--without them--in one piece, but there was no way to get it back into space at any date certain, and who would trust it again? Williams and Wilmore were stuck and are still on the ISS. Williams recently observed she had forgotten how to walk.

You can’t blame that on Joe Biden! Sure, we can. To be completely fair, we can blame that on Biden’s handlers, whose identities we now have at least a chance of learning. You’re going to blame this on DEI aren’t you? Yup. At least partially.

NASA went for DEI lock, stock and faulty Starliner. NASA’s Acting Administrator, Janet Petro, put on a brave face in appearing to implement President Trump’s DEI-demolishing mandate: 

In a memo to employees Jan. 22 obtained by SpaceNews, NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro said the agency was working to close offices related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) at the agency and cancel relevant contracts.

“These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination,” she wrote in the memo.

It also turns out Petro was singing a very different tune before Trump’s Executive Order:

While the NASA memo, on its own, would make it appear that Petro was critical of DEIA initiatives, she has previously praised them. In a November 2021 interview with Engineering News-Record, Petro, at the time several months into her tenure as director of the Kennedy Space Center, said diversity efforts were important to NASA and to her personally.

“At NASA and Kennedy Space Center, our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility has been paramount to mission success. The entire NASA leadership team stands behind this commitment,” she said in the interview.

We can always blame DEI/wokeness at least in part because when they’re implemented they suck all the competence out of the room. DEI commissars with powers the political commissars of the old Soviet Union would have envied subvert the mission of every government agency, and their real missions are abandoned for the glories of DEI. Those glories would have left Williams and Wilmore in the geriatric and failing ISS until it deorbited and burned up. Fortunately, Trump is cleaning up Biden’s handler’s messes:

Graphic: Truth Social Screenshot

And Elon Musk is stepping up:

Graphic: X Screenshot

Hopefully, Musk will be able to return them safely. He’ll surely do it much sooner than NASA could and at far less cost. And in the meantime, Trump will continue to fix every debacle Biden’s handlers left behind, just as he was elected to do.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor. 

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