Boeing Faces Hard Questions About Starliner And Its Future In Space | WUWM 89.7 FM...

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WASHINGTON — The moment NASA announced that the crew of Boeing's Starliner will return to Earth next year on a ship built by the company's rival, SpaceX, the questions began.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson was asked how confident he was that Boeing's spaceship would ever fly with a crew again .

"100%," Nelson replied without hesitation. Nelson said he had just spoken to Boeing's CEO before the press conference on Saturday, who assured him that "they intend to move forward and fly Starliner in the future."

Starliner will return from space as soon as next week. But the two astronauts who blasted off in June for what was supposed to be eight day mission at the International Space Station will now stay for eight months because of glitches that cropped up during the test flight.

It's another blow for Boeing in what's been a brutal year for the aerospace giant, and observers say it could have big implications for the company's future in space.

"Boeing is going to need to grapple with the consequences of the failure of this mission to achieve its test objectives," said Todd Harrison, a space industry veteran who's now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Boeing has changed since the contract for Starliner was awarded a decade ago , Harrison said, becoming less focused on human spaceflight.

"It's fairly likely Boeing will, within a few weeks or months, come to the conclusion that they just need to step back" from Starliner, he said. "This program kind of sticks out as something that doesn't fit with the rest of their business."

That would be a momentous shift for a company with a storied history in space that stretches back decades.