Butch & Suni may spend 7 MONTHS longer on station than intended due to issues with Boeing's Starliner.

NASA's contingency is to launch Crew-9 in September with only two crew members instead of four, with Butch & Suni replacing their spots. Crew-9 would return in February 2025. pic.twitter.com/1ZsUlhOXF8

— Owen Sparks (@OwenSparks_) August 7, 2024

This was the most predictable thing ever.

I predicted it, in fact.

CNN:

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — two veteran NASA astronauts piloting the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft — have now been in space for 63 days, roughly seven weeks longer than initially expected.

There is still no clear return date in sight, and NASA is now making clear that the astronauts may not come home on Starliner at all.

SpaceX, Boeing’s rival under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, may be tapped to bring Williams and Wilmore home instead. The move could potentially extend the astronauts’ stay on the International Space Station by another six months, pushing their return into 2025, agency officials said in a news conference Wednesday.

The comments from NASA leaders indicate a stunning change of tone for the space agency. Until now, officials have repeatedly indicated that Williams and Wilmore were likely to return home on Starliner, and a backup scenario involving Crew Dragon was mentioned as a mere possibility. Wednesday’s update, however, suggests the SpaceX vehicle is rapidly becoming a serious option.

Elon will probably get these people killed.

I’ve grown very tired of these astronauts, and I’m sure it sounds bad, but I would laugh if they died. Especially if Elon screwed everything up and there was video of their flesh being ripped from their bones as they tried to reenter the atmosphere.

Remember when Elon sent that toy sub to Thailand to try to get the kids out of the cave, and the British diver in charge of the operation said it was useless? Elon responded by calling him a pedophile, then getting sued over it and losing.

Wait, sorry – he actually won that lawsuit.

That’s even funnier.

But the funniest thing will be if these astronauts burn up on reentry and there is video of the flesh being ripped from their bones and then Elon goes on Twitter and is like “well, they were pedophiles anyway. No big loss.”

Then someone with a Pepe avatar replies “I’d like to see your tranny son have his flesh ripped from his bones like that, he’s already dead inside anyway” and Elon responds: “.”