NASA’s wise decision to implement a backup plan proved crucial in wake of the Starliner grounding

Whenever a rocket launch or mission goes wrong, experts always say the same thing: “Space is hard.” As advances in the space industry accelerate, this mantra has only grown more important, if not less, as we face—and, for the most part, overcome—the challenges of spaceflight with increasing frequency.

The situation that has unfolded aboard the International Space Station (ISS) over the past few months is a case in point: Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft successfully completed its first manned flight on June 5, but a hardware problem meant that after arriving at the ISS it was unclear whether the two NASA astronauts on board would be able to safely return to Earth as scheduled.

So after ground tests and much deliberation, NASA reversed course, announcing that its astronauts would stay longer and return instead in February 2025 aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft (see “Astronauts stranded on ISS reveal U.S. space program not in peril.”) A potentially catastrophic problem was reduced to a mere inconvenience thanks to NASA’s wise decision a decade ago to hire not one but two companies to build the capsules that would carry astronauts into space. We’d always known space was a tough place, and preparation paid off.

Hopefully, the thorough preparations will also pay off for the crew of SpaceX’s upcoming Polaris Dawn mission, which, if all goes well, will conduct the first-ever civilian spacewalk, and perhaps the most dangerous one ever (see page 8).

If the flight goes well, it will be another big win for commercial spaceflight, and especially for SpaceX, as it will be the first test of the company’s new spacesuit. Aging spacesuits have been a big problem for NASA and other space agencies for decades. The spacesuits NASA uses are the same ones astronauts wore in the 1980s and are long past their prime. A new spacesuit that is comfortable for civilians to wear, has better mobility, better temperature regulation and is more reliable would be a big win. It would make life in space a little easier.