A航天员太空之旅的未知归途：NASA与波音公司的挑战

English 00:00 New today, NASA and Boeing admit they still don't have a clear return date for those two astronauts that got up there on the Starliner. They're not technically stuck up there, but it sure seems like they might be stuck up there. Officials have insisted that Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are not stuck. 00:22 That's right, because there are ways they could get back. We're going to talk about that here in a second, but they aren't, at this point ready to commit to a return date yet. The astronauts have been in space now for 50 days on a mission that was supposed to last only a week. About a week, I should say. 00:38 CNN's Kristen Fischer here with us. As always, this is the assignment that continues to grow for you, Kristen, as it does for Sunny and Butch. And officials just held a press conference. And there's an update. Yes or no? Well, we got an update, but we didn't get a return date. That's what everybody's been waiting for. 00:58 That's what everybody's been hoping for. It didn't come. Now, both NASA leaders and Boeing leaders say that they've made great progress on the testing that they've been doing on the grounds in White Sands, New Mexico. They've been testing these thrusters that failed up in space on the ground. 01:15 See if they can duplicate the efforts there. They say they've made progress, but not enough to give an actual return date. And listen to this. one of the NASA leaders that was on the call, Steve Stich, he was asked point blank, can you definitively say that these two NASA astronauts ask NASA astronauts Butch and Sunny will definitively be coming home on this Starliner spacecraft? Here's what he said. 01:42 Our focus today, as Mark said, is Mark and I have been working for the last number of weeks for this to return Butch and Sony on Starliner. I think we're starting to close in on those final pieces of the flight rationale to make sure, that we can come home safely. and that's our primary focus right now. 02:01 We have contingency options. We've put those in play. NASA always has contingency options. we know a little bit of what those are, and we haven't worked on them, a whole bunch, but we kind of know what those are. So even now, this many weeks in, NASA still saying that they can't definitively say that Butch and Sonny will be able to come home on this Starliner spacecraft. 02:25 One more thing. You heard Steve talk about contingency plans. There are other ways, other spacecraft that in a worst case scenario, could get Butch and Sonny home. You've got the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. You've got SpaceX's Dragon capsule. Those are options. But at the moment, they're going to continue with this testing and hopefully get these astronauts home on Starliner. 02:46 Earliest would be likely mid-August, but they've got to get back by, September because that's when the battery life runs out on Starliner. Bit of an unplanned, vacation. Not vacation. Kind of a working vacation. Vacation. Part of the work that they went there to do. They received this really great, reception when they first got on is because they were fixing a key part of the, gear on the i.s.s. 03:13 and the astronauts, we understand, had resorted to using bags to hold some of their pee, some of their urine, because the crank something broke on the toilet. The pump. They brought the pump in. Do you have an update for us on on that situation? Yes. The urine replacement pump, has been fixed. It's working. Bags of astronaut urine are no longer just piling up at the International Space Station. 03:38 So that's some really good news. Especially when you have two extra bodies up there. Then what you were planning for, right? The downside for poor Butch and Sunny is that in order to get that pump up to the International Space Station, they had to take some gear out, and NASA chose to take out two of their personal suitcases. 03:58 In those suitcases were their toiletries. So things that you would want for an eight day stay, but things that you would definitely want for a several weeks long stay. Don't worry, guys, there are replacements. some stuff you have a stash of at the ISS, but it's not like your. It's not your toiletries, the brands you know and love, so you don't have to borrow someone else's deodorant, is what you're saying. 04:20 I let's hope not. Right. I mean, I guess first question one ability. Yeah, a lot of questions for them. Hopefully we'll know when they're getting back soon. Yeah. Kristen Fisher, thank you so much for that.