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Starliner
Congratulations to Boeing for its successful first launch of a manned Starliner spacecraft. The ship took off this morning from Cape Canaveral, propelling its two-man crew toward the International Space Station atop an Atlas V rocket. (The Atlas V was originally a Lockheed-Martin product but is now under joint development by Boeing and Lockheed-Martin.)
The Starliner launch is a welcome success for Boeing, which has come under fire lately for a series of technical mishaps and quality-control failures amid suggestions that the company’s embrace of DEI goals and its departure from its traditionally engineering-focused management might be undermining its commitment to excellence.
Pilot Barry Wilmore offered a few words from the Starliner capsule just minutes before launch. I thought what his speech lacked in eloquence it more than made up for in simple, unapologetic patriotism, and so I’ll quote it in its entirety.
For anybody listening, just a thought. Suni [co-pilot Sunita Williams] and I, as we were traveling to the pad, we saw many American flags and many of you were waving flags at us. And then as we reached the pad we looked up and of course there’s that American flag on the side of the white room, also one on the side of the rocket itself. And we know that that represents unity, and resilience, and unified efforts for the common good.
And that’s what Suni and I have witnessed this last month: each of you displaying what this nation’s forefathers envisioned, a people committed to God, Family, and country, a people who use their gifts and talents for the common good, and are passionate and tough. And we all know that when the going gets tough, and it often does, the tough get going. And you have. And Suni and I are honored to share this dream of spaceflight.
So let’s get going! Let’s put some fire in this rocket. Let’s push it to the heavens, where all these tough Americans have prepared it to be.
Safe travels, first crew of the Boeing Starliner.
Published in Science and Technology
Isn’t Sunita Williams a woman?
What, do I look like a biologist?
“…propelling its two-man crew…”
Maybe they didn’t totally desert DEI: But they still deserve congratulations.
NASA finally put Man back into space. Congrats is due.
Eh. Low Earth Orbit.
What a missed opportunity. I heard this on the news tonight and I thought for sure Wilmore would end the sentence with, “the tough get Boeing.”
Scroll to 4:12:15 for a good view of the booster jettison.
Yes – a Navy Commander and veteran astronaut – along with being the sister of my dear friend from Massachusetts. They are originally from Needham MA and there is a new grade school named after her there. Suni (pronounced Sonny, is her nickname)