Astronauts to Return in good weather.

[JamesG161]

"The Crew-9 mission, involving NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, undocked from the International Space Station earlier that day, marking the end of their mission."

That Gulf of America spot has a HIGH Pressure Cell to make recovery easier.

Windy.com weather



Godspeed their safe return.
Jim...

PS:

 

[JamesG161]

They landed Safely in the Gulf of America.

Right on their Schedule.

Jim...

 

[JamesG161]

Good video here

https://x.com/NASA/status/1902117081044189237

Jim...

 

[JamesG161]

Nick Hauge

waves

 

[JamesG161]

Even the Dolphins welcomed them home !

̄Amazing !!!

 

[BigEasy]

Even the Dolphins welcomed them home!

Happy for the crew to finally make it home safely!
NASA should be embarrassed; it’s been 14 years since the last shuttle flight & they still don’t have a reliable vehicle that can transport crews to & from the space station, much less than trips further into space. I am neither a fan nor foe of Elon Musk, but I have to give him credit; he knows how to get things done.

 

[Benny17441]

Didn't NASA plan for such a contingency? Two Astronauts travel to the Space Station and get stranded there for close to a year because of NASA's inability or lack of intent to retrieve them in a more expedient manner? How about if anyone at Space Station gets critically ill in need of surgery, are they out of luck? Seems to me Boeing and NASA should have funded a mission to bring them back sooner.

 

[jssailem]

How about if anyone at Space Station gets critically ill in need of surgery, are they out of luck?

First they do not send unhealthy individuals to the Space Station. One of the crew is designated the medical trained member. They all get training in emergency medical support. There is a team of medical experts available on the radio/TV, kind of FaceTime critical care. If all get critically ill there challenged to survive until help can get there. That is th element of risk all astronauts accept when signing the "Your going to OUTER SPACE" contract.

 

[BigEasy]

Didn't NASA plan for such a contingency?

Well, I guess that the contingency is Russia or SpaceX. Someone needs to kick NASA’s & Boeing’s collective butts. They have been working on this spacecraft for 20 years & still can’t fly a round trip to space station.

 

[Foswick]

NASA actually did have plans and contingencies. The crew was never actually stranded and could have been brought home at virtually any time. It is just that, after concerns over safety with the Boeing Starliner, SpaceX was just one of the remaining options.

Let's not forget, SpaceX could not even dream of existing, if not for decades of work done by NASA that SpaceX did not have to pay for.

Let's not laud SpaceX at NASA's expense. NASA did 90% of SpaceX's work for them. It's a bit like praising people who climb Mt. Everest, but have a sherpa carry all of their stuff. It's easy to summit if someone does the hard work for you up front.

And, I'm not even sure it is fair to criticize Boeing too much. The Starliner is very new. In fact, that is the main reason for this mission in the first place. There are bound to be issues. The seriousness of this particular issue is even pretty questionable. It might have been just fine. But, NASA chose to put crew safety first.

Again, they did have contingencies in place. They could have brought the crew home a long time ago. But, the crew was fine and had plenty of productive work to do. So, it was decided to wait for SpaceX to become ready with yet another contingency.

And finally, just to put this into proper perspective, the crew and passengers of the S.S. Minnow set out for what was intended to be a three-hour tour. A three-hour tour. And they were stuck for years. And, Crew-9 never had to deal with headhunters.