Pallab Ghosh
Appearances
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams blasted off in June on an experimental spacecraft built by Boeing called Starliner. On the way there, there were a few issues with their thrusters. And everyone said it was going to be fine. And NASA just needed to check it out. After those eight days had gone by, they said they still needed to check things out. And then days turned to weeks later.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
Weeks turned to a month. And then they said they'd have to wait until February because they couldn't be sure that they could get them back safely. And so much to Boeing's irritation, I suspect, they were told that it would be their arch rival SpaceX that would use their space capsule, the Dragon capsule, to bring them back in their next crew rotation. Alas, SpaceX 2 has had an issue.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
It hasn't got its capsule, the Dragon capsule, ready on time. So that's the reason for the delay. It's going to have it ready towards the end of March. And so that's delayed Butch and Sonny's return by a couple more months.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
Well, one would think so. I'm sure they're a little bit disappointed at missing out on Christmas. But that was always going to happen since September when they were told they were going to be stuck there till February. But these are professional astronauts. For them, being on the International Space Station is the best thing ever.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
There are hundreds of astronauts that would love to be in their position. So they, in some ways, were probably quite pleased when their short-duration eight-day mission was extended. And they've said several times they love working in space. And even Sonny Williams has said that the space station is a happy place. So I think that they're doing fine. They're doing their jobs.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
And they're doing it at the highest possible level, which is what they have lived to do.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
They're taking part in normal crew activities. There are hundreds of experiments on the International Space Station, but the biggest experiment of all is finding out the impact that long-duration space missions have on people.
Global News Podcast
Syria's de facto leader says the country is not a threat to its neighbours or the west
All the astronauts that go up there have their vitals monitored to see whether humans can stay in space in case we want to have colonies on the Moon or even have long-duration missions to Mars or even beyond.