Stranded in space? NASA sees the Starliner astronauts differently.

If you go somewhere and plan an eight-day trip, and end up not being able to leave for eight months, most people would consider that “stranded.”

That’s what happened to Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, two NASA astronauts who flew to the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft in June. During the test flight, the propulsion system malfunctioned, and engineers aren’t sure whether the two astronauts will be able to return to Earth alive.

Doesn’t that mean the astronauts are stranded?

Delian Asparouhov, founder and president of Varda Space Industries, a company that aims to produce medicines and other materials in space, posted on X: “I don’t know about you, but if I were stuck at an airport for seven months longer than expected, the word ‘stranded’ would definitely be used.”

But for astronauts who have spent their entire careers hoping to travel into space, the extra time in orbit – now ten weeks and counting – is not a nightmarish struggle for survival like it was for Matt Damon’s character of the stranded astronaut in the film “The Martian.”

In fact, it might be more like your boss asking you if you would mind extending a short business trip to Paris for six months.

“Butch and I have been up here before and it feels like coming home,” Ms. Williams, who has already spent two extended stays on the space station, said during a news conference last month. “It’s great to be up here, so I’m not complaining.”

Regardless of whether Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore are stranded or not, NASA now faces the difficult decision of how to most safely return them to Earth within the next week.

If NASA concludes that problems with the Starliner’s propulsion system pose too great a risk, it will switch to an alternative plan and bring the two astronauts home on the Crew Dragon, a vehicle built by Boeing’s rival SpaceX.

That, in turn, will result in a shuffling of astronaut assignments to the space station. The next Crew Dragon, scheduled to launch in late September, would carry two astronauts to the space station instead of four, leaving two seats open for Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore on the return flight in February next year.

All summer, NASA and Boeing officials shied away from using the words “stuck” and “stranded,” saying they would leave another black mark on the floor of a spacecraft whose launch has been delayed for years by technical setbacks.

“I think reporters use imprecise language to attract viewers,” said Lori Garver, who served as NASA’s deputy director during the Obama administration. “We’re all used to it. I don’t think it’s worth fighting against, but they’re not really stranded either.”

Although NASA and Boeing said Starliner would spend at least eight days at the space station, officials point out that this is a test flight designed to identify problems, so it’s no surprise that not everything went perfectly, they say.

“I think we all knew it was going to take longer,” said Mark Nappi, the Boeing representative in charge of the Starliner program. “We haven’t talked much about how long it’s going to take, but I think I regret not just saying, ‘We’re going to stay up there until we get everything we want to do done.'”

The reason for the astronauts’ extended stay – or stranding, if you will – is 28 thrusters, the so-called reaction control system that Starliner uses to maneuver. During the approach to the space station, five of them failed. Although four were revived and Starliner docked safely, there were still concerns that they could fail again on the return flight.

Ground tests showed that the problem may have been caused by the expansion of a Teflon seal in the engines, restricting fuel flow.

But subsequent test firings of the Starliner’s engines in orbit showed that performance was almost back to normal. This was puzzling, because you wouldn’t expect a deformed Teflon seal to return to its original shape. It raised the possibility that something else was the cause of the engine problems.

Joseph Fragola, an aerospace safety expert who, although not on the Starliner, worked on the lunar module with similar engines during the Apollo program in the 1970s, said a fuel imbalance could lead to a buildup of debris in the engines, which would also explain the engines’ reduced performance, and the debris could later evaporate and explain why the engines are now functioning normally.

“I don’t know if that’s their problem, but it took us a long time to fix it,” Mr Fragola said.

If this is a problem, it could pose a serious danger. The residue and an unbalanced mix of propellants could trigger an explosion, Mr Fragola said.

NASA officials cite another reason to support their claim that Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore are not truly stranded: They remain confident that the Starliner could be used by two astronauts in the event of an emergency evacuation of the space station.

That wasn’t the case in December 2022, when the radiator of a Russian Soyuz capsule sprung a leak, sending all of the craft’s coolant floating into space. A NASA astronaut, Frank Rubio, had flown to the space station on the Soyuz, and NASA officials decided the damaged spacecraft was not safe enough for an emergency because temperatures inside could become lethally hot during reentry. At the time, an improvised seat was fitted for Mr. Rubio in a Crew Dragon that was also docked at the space station.

Rubio was stuck in the space station until Russia sent a replacement Soyuz. He was supposed to spend six months there, but ended up setting the record for the longest stay in orbit by an American astronaut: 371 days.

The extended stays of Ms. Williams, Mr. Wilmore and Mr. Rubio were unplanned but not unpleasant, as cargo ships had brought in ample supplies.

The situation was different in 2003 for Don Pettit, an astronaut currently in Russia preparing for his fourth space flight, a launch to the space station scheduled for September 11. On his first space flight two decades ago, he was one of three astronauts on board the space station when the space shuttle Columbia broke apart during re-entry.

The astronauts on the station – Mr. Pettit, NASA’s Ken Bowersox, who is currently the senior NASA official overseeing the Starliner’s emergency and was commander of the ISS at the time, and Nikolai Budarin, a Russian astronaut – were not in immediate danger.

But as the three crew members grappled with the deaths of seven Columbia astronauts – their friends and colleagues – they quickly realized that the shuttle Atlantis, scheduled to pick them up the next month, would not arrive any time soon. They began rationing supplies.

“We immediately had a water shortage, a food shortage and a clothing shortage and we stocked up on supplies as much as we could,” Pettit said in an interview Friday.

In a 2015 NASA interview, Pettit said there were more than enough supplies there, but no one knew how long the shuttles would remain grounded.

“It’s like sitting on a mountain of food and clothing and starting to ration those things, not because you need them for your mission, but because you’re doing it to support other people’s missions,” Mr. Pettit said.

There are no washing machines in space, so clothes are worn for a few days, then used as rags and then thrown away. Mr Pettit said the astronauts had started wearing their clothes longer than planned.

“The sign that it’s time to change underwear is when a rash appears on the waist,” Mr Pettit said.

Mr. Pettit and his crew finally returned to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in May 2003 – three months later than planned.