0:00

Hello, it's Basha here. And before this

0:02

episode starts, I just wanted to

0:04

say thank you. It's five years

0:06

since we made our first ever

0:08

podcast. Since we're at the

0:10

beginning, we should, I think, do the polite thing and

0:12

make some introductions here. Basha, do do you want to start? That

0:14

was the beginning of our weekly

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investigative show, The Slow Newscast. And we have

0:18

hopefully gotten a bit better at

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this since then, what we care

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about hasn't changed because we still

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investigate injustices. Until recently, everything I'm

0:27

about to tell you was a

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secret. We tell gripping stories with

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a human heart. It's a

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screwed up, crazy kind love

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story, filled with death, lies, and

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witness protection programs. But

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still. It's a love story. and

0:42

we investigate in the public

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interest. We've won landmark legal battles.

0:47

Hello. I thought you'd like to know we've

0:49

got the judgement. It's going to be

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published. Oh my god. You

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can find our chart and

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award -winning series on Tortoise Investigates. What

0:57

I uncover is a global

1:00

game of cat and mouse.

1:02

A Catch me if you can.

1:05

And grown. Hello, I'm Tomany. and

1:07

this is the sense from Tortoise.

1:09

One story. On Tortoise News, can find our

1:11

and weekly shows that make

1:13

sense of the world. From

1:16

Tortoise, welcome to the news meeting. But from

1:19

everyone here, we wanted to say

1:21

thank you from our journalists, our producers,

1:23

our editors, our sound designers, thank

1:25

you for listening, for your support, for

1:27

your ideas. Here's, we hope, to

1:29

another five years. If

1:33

I can describe St. George's University one

1:35

word, I would say opportunity. I always

1:37

dreamed of being a doctor. St. George's

1:39

me the opportunity to fulfill that

1:41

dream. One word to describe SU

1:43

would be opportunity. gives me an

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opportunity to work a career that I know

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I'll be happy in. journey and this experience

1:50

has been something that has been

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life changing, life altering. It's just something I

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absolutely am grateful for.

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Learn more at .edu Slicesplore.

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2:40

I'm Giles Wittell and this is the

2:43

Sloan Newscast from Tautus. The

2:50

sound quality in what you're

2:52

about to hear isn't great but

2:55

we should probably make allowances.

2:57

The first speaker is in a

2:59

confined space in orbit. depending

3:01

on what is done for manual

3:03

maneuvering and it is free

3:05

size, much more so even than

3:08

the simulator. I mean stopping

3:10

exactly on a number you want

3:12

to stop on, The precision

3:14

is pretty amazing, to hear And

3:16

it is just an amazing,

3:19

amazing spacecraft put together for a

3:21

a magnificent job. That's Butch

3:23

Wilmore, U Navy test pilot, NASA

3:25

astronaut, proud father and husband,

3:27

and before that, captain of his

3:29

college football team. Butch and

3:32

Sonny have made their arrival. Lots

3:35

of cheering here in the

3:37

room, big hugs. Sonny William coming

3:39

through in her blue flight

3:41

suit. And followed surely behind by

3:43

commander of Starliner. Sonny is

3:46

also a Navy test pilot and

3:48

NASA astronaut. They don't catch

3:50

her speaking on this part of

3:52

the Boeing promo clip, mainly

3:54

because she isn't. She's punching the

3:56

air and dancing in zero

3:59

gravity. to just to be in

4:01

space again. That

4:05

was all on June the 5th this year. Wilmore

4:07

and Williams just accomplished the first

4:10

half of the first crewed test

4:12

flight of a brand new

4:14

spacecraft, the Boeing Starliner.

4:17

They were meant to be in orbit for

4:19

about eight days before flying the Starliner back

4:22

to Earth. Six months

4:24

later they're still in space.

4:27

They Thanksgiving there, and they'll spend

4:29

Christmas there. All being well,

4:31

they'll return to Earth after eight

4:33

months rather than eight days in a

4:35

completely different spacecraft. the

4:38

one they came up in, well, it

4:40

without them Empty. About

4:43

months ago. The

4:48

is the size of a bus and

4:50

the shape of a yurt. So

4:53

far Boeing has spent nearly six

4:55

billion dollars on it and lost about

4:57

billion a half billion over budget. one

4:59

and a half billion over budget. The

5:02

bottom half of the is a straight

5:04

-sided cylinder bristling with rocket motors. it

5:07

burned up as it re -entered the atmosphere. the

5:11

top half, conical, designed for

5:13

astronauts, survived re -entry as

5:15

intended. It now

5:17

sits in a hangar in Cape Canaveral

5:19

in Florida, blackened with scorch marks.

5:22

being over by engineers, trying to

5:24

explain what might just be

5:26

the biggest embarrassment in the history

5:28

of human spaceflight. Butch

5:31

and should be fine. As

5:33

a species, we're quite good at staying

5:35

reasonably healthy for long stints in space. And

5:38

there's plenty of food on the International

5:41

Space Station. It's

5:43

how they came to be stuck up there that

5:45

makes you wonder. This is a

5:47

20 -year story that started with a tragedy. A

5:50

tragedy that's haunted NASA ever since

5:52

and you can't help thinking. has

5:55

it of its mojo. And

5:57

not just NASA, but Boeing too. American

6:00

institutions which suddenly find themselves

6:02

in the shadows of a

6:04

younger, hungrier competitor. It's

6:11

funny, I think there's some rumors around

6:13

there that I'm losing weight and stuff. Here's

6:16

Sunny Williams again, on the space

6:18

station a couple of weeks ago,

6:20

introducing herself to an American

6:22

TV audience with a zero gravity back flip. No,

6:25

I'm actually right at the same amount.

6:27

Things shift around quite a bit. You know,

6:29

there's, you've probably heard of a fluid

6:31

shift where in space, you know, their heads look

6:33

a little bit bigger because fluid evens

6:35

out along the body. Whatever

6:37

she's feeling, Williams gives no

6:39

sign of irritation, which stands

6:41

to reason. She's a

6:43

professional. You'd imagine it

6:45

would take more than a little tabloid

6:48

TV to bother someone who's been a

6:50

navy diver as well as a combat helicopter

6:52

pilot, who's seen active duty all

6:54

over the Middle who's broken

6:56

records for time space, broken

6:58

records for time on space walks and

7:00

who's run a marathon on a

7:02

treadmill in orbit. Sunny

7:04

Williams calls the space station her

7:06

happy place. Later, in

7:08

a press conference with Wilmore, she says she misses

7:10

her two dogs. Wilmore, for

7:12

his part, says he misses his two

7:15

daughters. I'm going to she miss

7:17

most of her senior year in high school, my

7:19

youngest daughter, and oldest daughter is

7:21

a sophomore at East Texas

7:23

Baptist University. I wasn't able

7:25

to be with her during the summer. But

7:28

like I said earlier, we've tried

7:30

to teach them the principles that

7:32

are important and let them understand

7:34

that trials, however you judge what

7:36

a trial might be, makes you

7:38

stronger. You'll recall

7:40

that the principle that was important

7:42

to Wilmore and Williams at the

7:44

start of this particular trial was precision. Let's

7:47

rewind. Sunny

7:51

and I both have done

7:54

some manual maneuvering, and it is

7:56

three sides. Precision was

7:58

important to them because because with

8:00

a space station is a high

8:02

-stakes business. The station

8:04

and its visitor are both traveling

8:06

at nearly kilometres an hour. kilometers an

8:08

hour. As they get within

8:10

10 meters of each other, that

8:13

gap needs to be closing

8:15

at less than 10

8:17

centimeters per second, which is

8:19

really, really slow. Space flight is risky,

8:22

even at its safest

8:24

and even at

8:26

its most routine And

8:29

a test flight nature is

8:32

neither safe nor

8:35

routine. Bill Nelson

8:37

is the head of NASA and a

8:39

former astronaut himself. He's a

8:41

bit ponderous, perhaps, but of

8:43

course he's right. Even the

8:45

movies don't have to exaggerate this stuff. If

8:48

you puncture a space on a spacewalk,

8:50

you have seconds to live before your

8:52

blood boils in the vacuum of space.

8:54

If you collide with a piece of

8:56

space junk in the opposite direction your

8:58

spacecraft will probably disintegrate. Approach

9:01

re -entry at the wrong angle and

9:03

you'll burn up or skid off into space

9:05

forever. And so, as

9:07

an astronaut, ideally, you

9:09

want the tried and tested

9:11

and that does not describe

9:13

the starliner any point in its

9:16

development. I'm Jackie Goddard. I'm based

9:18

in Florida and I'm a

9:20

reporter who's been here covering for

9:22

the last years. years. So, if

9:24

we go right back really

9:26

when we first expected Starliner

9:28

to undergo its first test,

9:30

that was this was to be the

9:32

first uncrewed orbital flight test

9:34

in December 2019. And

9:36

And be I can tell you that atmosphere

9:38

around that day was a very excited one.

9:41

Up at Cape Canaveral at at the Space

9:43

Centre, all went out as members of

9:45

the media. We were bussed out to

9:47

the launch pad to go and see

9:49

the Atlas V sitting on the pad with

9:51

this enormous 172 foot rocket with this

9:54

tiny little capsule sitting on top

9:56

and you realise much power it needs. to really

9:58

just get off this planet and

10:00

get it into space and what incredible

10:02

engineering this really was. So much

10:04

excitement and as the clock ticked down

10:06

to launch and you know was

10:09

the weather going to do its thing

10:11

and everything seemed to go right. off

10:14

it went, it looked fabulous.

10:16

It was a pre -dawn launch.

10:18

So we got all the spectacle

10:20

of the darkness and the

10:22

flame and the fireball lifting up

10:24

there. and it became very

10:27

apparent very quickly that something

10:29

was afoot. word was that

10:31

Starliner wasn't where it should be.

10:33

The rocket had put it into orbit,

10:35

but catching up to the space

10:37

station, which is where Starliner was going,

10:39

is like a cat and mouse

10:41

game. And it requires the cat, which

10:43

was Starliner. to make these very

10:46

precise manoeuvres of pounces in

10:48

order to get onto a trajectory, a

10:50

flight path that will ultimately intersect with the

10:52

space station and get it where it

10:54

needs to be. and the problem that

10:56

it ran into was

10:58

the OMAC thrusters, the orbital

11:00

and thrusters on. Starliner weren't

11:03

doing their job getting Starliner

11:05

to the altitude it needed

11:07

to chase down the ISS.

11:09

because there had been a

11:11

problem. with a clock

11:13

on board, which basically was

11:15

telling Starliner that the mission

11:17

elapsed time, the time since

11:20

launch. was something different

11:22

to reality. So Starliner thinks

11:24

a certain number of hours

11:26

and minutes have passed. and

11:28

that certain things have already happened.

11:30

and they hadn't, so it was confused.

11:32

It's drifting around up there, not doing

11:35

what it's meant to be doing. And

11:37

by now, the tone that we're

11:39

getting out of Boeing out of NASA

11:41

was a very tense one. We did

11:43

spend another five years, really, watching bowing

11:45

a NASA. trying to

11:47

dance this very difficult dance

11:49

around just perfecting, sorting out

11:52

what was going wrong and

11:54

needing to put it right.

11:56

more continued to go wrong on tests

11:58

in 2021. 2022 and

12:00

of course this year. So

12:03

now it's May

12:05

2024, Starliner is back

12:07

on launch at Kennedy

12:09

Space Center at Cape Canaveral.

12:11

And this time there are

12:13

humans on board. We've got

12:16

Butch and Sonny Williams to

12:18

eminent astronauts deeply respected at

12:20

NASA. This was really

12:22

a shakedown mission. was to put

12:24

Starliner through its paces but with

12:26

humans there too. Even then, there

12:28

was a lot that could go wrong.

12:30

and quite a lot did. Job

12:33

1 for Starliner on reaching

12:35

orbit, was a thorough testing of

12:37

those reaction control system thrusters. They

12:40

all had to be fired repeatedly. Some

12:42

of this was automated. some was

12:44

done manually by Wilmore and Williams. Maybe

12:46

we know them well enough by now

12:49

to call them butch and sunny.

12:51

In any case, the Starliner's computers decided

12:53

that in the course of this

12:55

testing, five of the 48 thrusters had

12:57

been rendered quote, damaged and unusable,

12:59

unquote. the computer wouldn't say

13:01

why. Butch and Sunny didn't know.

13:03

Mission Control didn't know. All

13:06

they did know was that all

13:08

five RCS thrusters were facing backwards. which

13:11

meant the Starliner's ability to move forwards

13:13

in a hurry might be severely compromised.

13:16

And so, for an hour the six

13:18

billion capsule hung around in space,

13:20

not closing on the space station,

13:22

while its ground handlers wondered what

13:25

to do. Eventually

13:27

it docked. It's

13:30

worth listening to Butch one more time.

13:33

and it is worth and

13:37

it's worth wondering. Is

13:39

that the sound of triumph or

13:41

relief? So

13:45

we're taking about 45

13:47

minutes to go from... the

13:49

Australia area all the way around

13:51

to either California or to

13:53

Florida, depending on the target. This

13:55

is Tom Jones, former astronaut,

13:57

describing his return to Earth aboard

14:00

toward the Space Shuttle Columbia in

14:02

1996. The

14:04

weather in Florida was good, so that's where

14:06

they would land. So was

14:08

the flight engineer right behind the two

14:10

pilots and I'm constantly involved with them running

14:12

checklists and watching their performance of the

14:14

ship as it flies itself back to

14:16

the landing strip. And You're

14:19

looking through eight windows, six in the

14:21

front, two overhead, and that

14:23

3 ,000 degree glow on the outside

14:25

of the shuttle lighting up the

14:27

inside of the cabin like a neon tube.

14:30

So it's pink and orange and some

14:33

spots, cherry red, and And then there's

14:35

a big white comet tail going past

14:37

the overhead windows and streaking past out the

14:40

tail for dozens of miles behind

14:42

you. That was visible from sea

14:44

level. not many people would

14:46

see it when bad weather on the

14:48

east coast the shuttle to land

14:50

at Edwards Air Force in California. because

14:53

order to see it, they'd have to be out in the

14:55

Pacific. but it was visible from

14:57

as far west as Texas. when

14:59

the landing was in Florida. So we

15:01

pay attention to is the ship. and how

15:03

it's performing. but also you'd

15:05

steal quick up and out

15:07

through the windows watching the amazing

15:09

fireball that you're flying

15:11

through or flying along inside

15:14

of as you head

15:16

towards Earth. And this peak heating

15:18

is from about Mach 22 two

15:20

or so down to about Mach 15. That's

15:22

when you when you get

15:24

the most intense glow. And And

15:26

glow. at times in that cabin,

15:28

it's a spectacular light show inside.

15:30

There's... incandescent

15:33

flashes from that tail behind you out

15:35

overhead windows. So you look around at the

15:37

helmets of the people surrounding you

15:39

and you see the white flashes bouncing

15:41

off the tops of their helmets so

15:43

it's really remarkable. know on that flight

15:45

on Columbia, my commander, Ken was looking out the

15:47

window at the orange going by his

15:49

windows and he said I wonder

15:51

what color alumina makes when it burns

15:55

And it's us whistling past the graveyard.

15:57

You know, we're joking about how fragile. our

16:00

existence is in the middle of this re -entry

16:02

plasma with the ship shedding that heat

16:04

as it comes through as long as

16:06

the heat shield is intact. We had

16:08

no assurance no visual inspection

16:10

that told us that our heat shield was in

16:12

one piece, but that's all you can assume because

16:14

you have no option but to come home. Seven

16:17

years later, the same shuttle

16:19

was preparing for the same re -entry

16:21

and Tom Jones was in his garage

16:24

in Virginia. It was a

16:26

Saturday morning and was painting part

16:28

of my basement. So I was

16:30

down there rolling paint onto

16:32

the walls and watching on TV

16:34

the return of the space shuttle Columbia on

16:36

STS-107. STS stands

16:38

for Space Transportation System.

16:41

STS -107 was the official

16:43

NASA designation for this mission.

16:46

It was February the 1st, 2003.

16:48

2003. And while Tom Jones

16:50

would probably have had half an eye on

16:52

the television anyway, he was especially interested

16:54

because he knew the crew of seven well. Those

16:56

were seven of my friends. They'd done

16:59

a science research mission on orbit for about

17:01

14 days and they were headed back home. So

17:04

the -entry process, just

17:06

tracking them on TV, watching mission control,

17:08

bringing them back down to Florida,

17:11

and the first thing I noticed

17:13

was that there was a dropout communications

17:15

where Houston was expecting them

17:17

to make some calls during their

17:19

re -entry phase and and

17:21

didn't hear anything from the shuttle. And

17:24

also noticed that the CAPCOM,

17:27

the astronauts talks to the

17:29

astronauts on the shuttle from control,

17:31

was switching back and forth

17:33

from the primary radio link

17:35

to a backup UHF,

17:38

ultra-high frequency radio. And the shuttle should

17:40

have been approaching Florida, they

17:42

weren't getting any communication. A

17:44

little background. It was known

17:46

that a lump of solid

17:49

foam had hit the shuttle's protective

17:51

ceramic shield during liftoff. It

17:53

wasn't known if there was serious damage, but

17:56

NASA had approved the deorbit return

17:58

to Earth anyway. he was calling

18:00

again and again that was Charlie Hobaugh

18:02

who was making the radio calls.

18:05

He wasn't getting a response and it's

18:07

normal to have some communications dropouts for

18:09

a minute or two during re -entry as

18:11

the antennas on the shuttle at different

18:13

satellites and and on. But

18:15

the fact that no answers were

18:17

coming in was worrisome. So I of

18:19

put the roller down in the

18:21

paint pan and started to more attention

18:24

to the shuttle. And so it

18:26

it apparent as they were reaching

18:28

the Florida area that they were

18:30

still not having communications and by

18:32

that phase of the flight when you're

18:35

plunging towards the runway there's constant

18:37

chatter back and forth between the

18:39

crew and the the controllers. In

18:41

this case they weren't hearing anything. That's

18:44

the point where I started to say some prayers

18:46

for the crew. And then

18:48

it was just a few minutes later

18:50

that we began to see the

18:52

local television images of the fireball breaking

18:54

up over north and east Texas. that that

18:56

the end of the story. So it

18:58

was all I could do then was to just pray for

19:00

the families and the crew. Columbia

19:03

was the second shuttle NASA

19:05

lost. The first 88 missions

19:08

earlier was Challenger, which

19:10

blew up 73 seconds after

19:12

takeoff. Multiple official

19:14

investigations into the

19:16

Challenger disaster blamed things. Faulty

19:19

O-rings or seals which

19:22

combustible gases, which the

19:24

explosion and a

19:26

a hierarchical NASA culture that

19:28

meant engineers' worries weren't transmitted to

19:30

senior management. As

19:32

for the Columbia investigations, also blamed

19:34

two things. That lump

19:37

of foam which

19:39

cause serious damage

19:41

so that part blamed

19:43

hierarchical culture. Nothing

19:45

had changed or least

19:48

the most important lessons from Challenger how

19:50

to run a a space

19:52

agency without wasting human life

19:54

had not been learned. And

19:56

that was 2003 that's 21

19:58

years later and we're to

20:00

return to the moon. The The The

20:02

of NASA now as as an

20:04

institution is to remember the

20:06

failures of engineering and

20:09

people in 2003 and not let

20:11

that recur as we go

20:13

back to the moon. That

20:15

being so fast fast forward

20:17

to this year, in in your

20:19

view, was it was it the

20:21

right call to keep the

20:23

two astronauts aboard the ISS

20:25

and bring Starliner back empty? I

20:28

think there's a direct linkage to the

20:30

Columbia accident to the to

20:32

leave the Starliner up aboard the

20:34

space station. And we don't

20:36

have to take Tom Jones' word

20:38

for it. Here's Bill Nelson again,

20:40

the NASA administrator, at the press

20:42

conference at which he announced his

20:44

decision to leave Butch and up there.

20:46

We have had mistakes done

20:48

in the past. We lost two

20:51

shuttles as a result

20:53

of of not being

20:55

a culture which

20:58

information could come forward.

21:01

Nelson returned to the theme

21:03

later. Going back to the

21:05

loss of Challenger, even the

21:07

engineers in Utah and

21:10

Morton Thiokol begging their

21:12

management not to launch

21:14

because of the

21:16

cold weather. And

21:18

information never got up and that

21:21

was happening on the very night

21:23

before the launch the next morning. Morton

21:26

Thiokol, for those who don't follow

21:28

these things, made the solid rocket

21:30

boosters that powered the shuttles into

21:33

orbit and came complete with faulty O-rings.

21:35

Bill Nelson went on to talk about astronauts

21:38

who would inspect their shuttles after

21:40

landing and report damage to

21:42

the heat shield, which was caused

21:44

by this foam debris, that

21:46

looked as if it had been

21:48

blasted with shotguns. But was a

21:50

culture that did not bring

21:52

that information up to the decision

21:54

makers. So NASA ever

21:56

since tried very

21:59

hard. to

22:01

bring about an atmosphere in

22:03

which people are encouraged to

22:05

step forward and speak their

22:07

mind. And think

22:10

right today. is

22:12

a good example of that. So,

22:17

lessons at last. Discretion,

22:19

the better part of valour, better

22:22

safe than dead. For

22:24

a non -NASA view of the decision

22:26

to leave Butch and in orbit for eight

22:28

months, we talk to

22:30

Professor Elliot of Embry University in

22:32

Arizona. which in

22:35

turning out young rocket scientists. This

22:37

is how we summed it up. They don't

22:39

want to be known as the people. that

22:42

were, you know, at the... at

22:44

the helm when something like this... failed.

22:47

look in a book and see the names of the people of Challenger. that

22:50

made the decisions. And

22:52

I want to be, I want to be wherever I like to. You

22:56

ought to be remembered like Gene Kranz, for...

22:59

Bringing home safe. Ah yes,

23:01

Gene Krantz. Remember him? Here

23:04

he is in Apollo 13, the

23:06

Ron Howard film that became required

23:08

viewing for anyone who wanted to

23:10

understand the of NASA in its

23:12

heyday, including, Elliot says,

23:15

all his students. Find

23:17

out how to squeeze every amp out of both

23:19

of these goddamn machines. I

23:21

want this mark the

23:23

way back to Earth time to spare.

23:27

We lost an American in space. We're sure as hell

23:29

not gonna lose one on my watch. Failure

23:31

is not an option. Gene

23:34

Krantz, Capcom for Apollo

23:36

13, the Taylor of

23:38

the golden of space. All

23:41

the best lines, all fancy costumes. His

23:44

wife was said to have stitched

23:46

him a new embroidered waistcoat every mission. Bill

23:49

Nelson may or may not be remembered

23:52

in the same breath. Well

23:54

being well, he'll bring Sonny and back in

23:57

one piece. But there

23:59

are a couple of things that we can do. of between Apollo

24:01

13 and the first crewed

24:03

test flight of the Starliner. Number

24:06

one. Apollo 13 was out there

24:08

on the bleeding edge of what was

24:10

possible. Halfway between Earth and the

24:12

Moon for only the fourth time

24:14

in history, with a leaking command

24:17

module and less computing power than a

24:19

Nokia brick. The Starliner, with due

24:21

respect to its crew and to

24:23

Bill Nelson, had barely made

24:25

it into orbit. And

24:27

number two. at the time

24:29

of Apollo 13, NASA and

24:31

Boeing had no real competition in

24:33

space apart from the Soviet space program.

24:36

Well, now they do. If

24:46

I can describe St. George's University one

24:48

word, I would say opportunity. I always

24:50

dreamed of being a doctor. St.

24:52

George's gave me the opportunity to to

24:54

that dream. One word to describe

24:56

STU would be opportunity. It gives me

24:58

an opportunity to and work towards career

25:01

that I I'll be happy in.

25:03

This journey and this experience has been

25:05

something that has been life changing,

25:07

life altering. It's just something I am

25:09

grateful for. Learn more at stu

25:11

.edu slash explore. Stop

25:13

over in Qatar enjoy

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That's why you rack. In

26:04

the in hot for Booster's

26:06

touch. This

26:08

is absolutely insane!

26:11

For the first ever attempt

26:13

we have successfully put

26:15

the Super Heavy Booster back

26:18

at the launch counter. What

26:20

an incredible! Are

26:23

you kidding me?

26:26

In the time it took Boeing to

26:29

build the Starliner and bring it back

26:31

empty from the ISS, SpaceX

26:33

has designed, built, tested

26:35

and operated its

26:37

Dragon and Crew Dragon No

26:40

serious mishaps, more than 20

26:42

successful deliveries to the space

26:45

station, eight of them crewed,

26:47

and all for $1 .6 billion than

26:49

what NASA has paid Boeing for the

26:51

Starliner. SpaceX has launched that super-heavy rocket,

26:54

the biggest ever built, the

26:56

one that so impressed Donald Trump

26:58

on election night. I saw

27:00

the fire pour out from the

27:02

left side and I put it

27:04

straight, and it came down so

27:06

gently and then it wrapped those

27:08

arms around it. And it

27:10

has plucked that rocket from the air with

27:12

a steel gantry as it returned to Earth. It

27:14

was an extraordinary sight, like something

27:16

out of Iron Man, on steroids. By

27:20

science standards, delivering to

27:22

orbit is now routine by

27:24

comparison. Just don't try

27:26

telling NASA. When you

27:28

push the edge of the envelope again

27:30

and do things with spacecraft that have

27:32

never been done before, just like Starliner,

27:34

you're going to find some things,

27:36

and in this case we some things

27:38

that we just could not get comfortable

27:40

with. Butch Wilmore is

27:42

a team player, a NASA

27:44

man of the old school who

27:46

believes in honor, courage, and commitment, and

27:49

is proud to say so. Proud as

27:51

still to say so from the station.

27:54

But that never done

27:56

before part? It's just not

27:58

true. and a liner is

28:00

doing things or trying to do things. that

28:02

have been done for 50 years. Part

28:05

of of an job has always been PR

28:07

and that is what is happening here.

28:10

And here. Like I said, it's not said, easy thing

28:12

to do, but that's not why we do it.

28:14

Maybe we do it because it's hard. Nice

28:16

try. echoes of Kennedy there.

28:19

We choose to go to the moon and

28:21

this decade and do the other things. Not

28:24

because they are easy, but because they

28:26

are hard. No

28:29

one's saying spaceflight is suddenly easy. But

28:32

the relevant comparison is not

28:34

with easier forms of transport or

28:36

of endeavour. It's with SpaceX.

28:39

which is making spaceflight look easy, by

28:41

going at it with all the energy

28:43

and urgency of the early days of

28:45

the space race, which is all quite

28:47

alien to NASA now. The

28:49

hard stuff, if that's what Butch Wilmore wants

28:51

to talk about. nowadays getting

28:53

to Mars, in which

28:56

SpaceX also dominates. No

28:58

wonder is the kind of place young engineers

29:00

want to work. When

29:02

I graduated from my

29:05

undergraduate degree, nobody was

29:07

going into rockets. the jobs

29:09

just weren't there was you had to go to

29:11

NASA or Boeing one

29:14

of those big aerospace giants and

29:16

weren't doing lot. You know

29:18

Shuttle still going on on and that was

29:20

really the only thing this is Elliot Briner again.

29:22

but now I mean there are are startups

29:25

in the rocket industry all over

29:27

the place. and my students

29:29

are finding that getting the jobs

29:31

with those companies. number one, there

29:33

are there are more of them. number two. two, They

29:36

get into those jobs and they're

29:38

doing something that they feel

29:41

is contributing. right away.

29:43

Reiner has recent former students bending

29:45

metal and testing rocket engines at

29:47

SpaceX, at Blue Origin, which

29:50

Blue is Jeff Bezos' company, at Rocket

29:52

Lab and other startups all over

29:54

the US. So what

29:56

about Boeing? I can tell you that the

29:58

number of my students that work at... SpaceX many,

30:00

many more than the number of my students that

30:02

work Boeing. Because we can't think

30:04

of any of my students that at Boeing, so. I

30:07

I was just showing a picture today

30:09

of five of my students. Is it five?

30:11

No, it's more than five. Seven? Anyway,

30:14

I'm standing in front of

30:17

some models of the the vehicles

30:19

in Texas for SpaceX. And

30:21

those were my students that

30:23

were either full -time employees there

30:26

SpaceX or interns. And We

30:28

extremely well -represented, if you think about,

30:31

it. We're pretty

30:33

small school, but we've

30:35

got five, seven

30:37

students, former students on the

30:39

launch team in there. Wow. And none at

30:41

Boeing that you can remember. I

30:44

can't think of anybody at Boeing. All

30:46

appropriate caveats apply. This

30:48

is anecdotal. The sample size

30:50

is small, but it's not a

30:52

good look. And if

30:54

this suggests Boeing isn't a cool place to

30:56

work anymore, it's not hard to understand why.

30:59

The company's Civil Aviation Division is on

31:01

a glide slope to doom or something close. It's

31:04

a decline that started when two 737s

31:06

crashed in 2018 and 2019. crashed in 2018

31:08

and 2019. Since then, Boeing's

31:11

lost nearly two -thirds of its

31:13

market value and about 1 ,000 airplanes worth

31:15

of market share. It's

31:17

lost a couple of CEOs and

31:20

reputation. The

31:22

question here is, its

31:24

division similarly afflicted? It

31:27

would seem so. In

31:30

August, NASA's Office of

31:32

Inspector General produced a report

31:34

on Boeing's biggest rocket factory in

31:36

New Orleans. The report

31:39

said the factory didn't adhere to

31:41

NASA's quality management standards, that

31:43

it suffered from, quote, a recurring and

31:45

degraded state of product quality control,

31:47

that it lacked a sufficient number

31:49

of trained and experienced aerospace workers, and

31:52

that it may do instead

31:55

with, quote, inexperienced technicians and work

31:57

order planning and supervision. This

32:00

is not, in fact, the factory where

32:02

the starlining was built, but the report

32:04

was damning. It was about

32:06

culture, and it was published two weeks

32:08

before the decision to leave Sonny and

32:10

Butch on the ISS. I I

32:12

think that that was probably in the background

32:14

of everyone's thinking. That's Tom

32:16

Jones again, the astronaut. And

32:19

there's something else that will have been

32:21

in NASA's thinking as it wondered what to

32:23

do. Another decision

32:25

by another astronaut. Doug

32:27

Hurley is a veteran of

32:29

two shuttle missions and one long

32:31

trip on the ISS. He

32:34

was appointed as a

32:36

consultant to the Starliner project

32:38

and to SpaceX's Crew Dragon project in

32:41

their development. He tells

32:43

the author Eric Berger a new book

32:45

on the second age, the

32:47

book is called Reentry. that

32:49

he found SpaceX's engineers to

32:51

be excited to work with

32:53

them. That is to work with the astronauts.

32:56

He found them eager to hear feedback

32:58

and attentive to their suggestions. Doug

33:01

Hurley found the Boeing people by

33:03

contrast, indifferent, arrogant and

33:06

overconfident. According

33:08

to the Berger book, Hurley

33:10

would later refuse to fly on the

33:12

Starliner, but he did fly on the

33:15

first successful test flight of the

33:17

SpaceX Crew Dragon and

33:19

flew in a suit like something out of Star

33:21

Trek. The long,

33:23

chaotic story of Butch and Sunny in

33:25

the Starliner echoes different

33:27

sort of sci -fi. I

33:30

think one of the biggest fears

33:32

and things that people in the

33:34

space industry have always been afraid

33:36

of is is humans in space. You

33:39

know, know, always been, I think, a always

33:41

big big scare.

33:43

when when stranded up there, how do you,

33:45

you know, if we had an stranded on

33:47

the moon, what we do? do? You

33:50

know, I mean, what's the answer to that? There was not an

33:52

answer for it. There is an answer for

33:54

it now. Sunny and should make

33:56

it home, no problem. In

33:58

SpaceX just Just Doug

34:00

Hurley's. But their eight-month stay

34:02

orbit reflects what could become a

34:04

big problem for NASA as it tries

34:06

to return to the moon. Failure

34:09

is not an option, started

34:11

as a prescription for heroics. It

34:14

has become a prescription for

34:16

paralysis. But But can tell you that

34:18

it has done to the

34:21

attitude of my students

34:23

and my students are

34:25

very risk averse, and and I think

34:27

culture has It has made

34:29

them that way, that any... Any

34:32

failure any capacity. This scares

34:34

them to death. I

34:49

always dreamed of being a doctor. St. George's

34:51

me the opportunity to fulfill that dream.

34:53

I always think about my opportunity to

34:55

be on that island, to learn from

34:57

so many different people, from so many

34:59

different walks of life, to approach medicine

35:01

from such a different perspective, and ultimately

35:03

shape me to be somebody who is

35:05

a culmination of those experiences and

35:08

then then me off into the

35:10

world of residency where I

35:12

am now as an incredibly well -rounded

35:14

physician. Learn more at sgu .edu/explore. What

35:18

a difference a day makes. What

35:21

a difference a day

35:23

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