Boeing’s Starliner carrying Sunita Williams and Butch Bilmore has returned to Earth. But due to doubts over its safe landing, NASA did not allow the two astronauts to come in it. NASA has given the task of bringing back these two astronauts to Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. But the biggest question that arises is why the Big Boss of the space sector on Earth has become so dependent on private companies to bring back astronauts, why does it not have its own space shuttle, with the help of which it can make astronauts travel to space and then bring them back.
Although Boeing and SpaceX have been given permission by NASA to build spacecraft for NASA and then use them. SpaceX has lived up to this trust for a few years and is continuously completing journeys with spacecraft, but this attempt of Boeing is considered unsuccessful, although Starliner has successfully landed on the earth, its investigation and the debate of Boeing officials with NASA officials have spoiled things between the two.
How did private players enter the space sector?
NASA, which successfully reached the moon and returned on the basis of its space technology, saw many ups and downs during this program. NASA’s Space Shuttle Program traveled to space about 135 times in four decades, but after this, on 21 July 2011, this Space Shuttle Program was officially closed. The main reason for this was its very high cost and the risk involved in it. In an accident in 1986, the entire crew died, but NASA kept this program going by making some improvements in itself. But even after all the improvements and efforts, 17 years later the Space Shuttle Columbia, carrying Kalpana Chawla, met with an accident, after which the outline of closing America’s Space Shuttle Program was decided.
After this accident, US President George Bush announced in 2004 that NASA would shut down its space shuttle program. After this, NASA became dependent on Russia for its spacecrafts because Russia was the only one that was the best in this after America. When this program of America was completely shut down in 2011, Russia also helped America, during this time America used Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. But the relations between America and Russia were never normal. Just 3 years later, Russia attacked Crimea and America showed Russia the way out of G7, after which the relations between the two countries deteriorated.
SpaceX and Boeing came forward again
In 2014, after deteriorating relations with Russia and lagging behind in space, NASA decided that it would now turn to private players. In September 2016, NASA announced that it had signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s company SpaceX and American aircraft manufacturer Boeing to send astronauts to the space station and bring them back. Under this agreement, Boeing was given $ 4.2 billion, while SpaceX was given $ 2 billion.
After this agreement, a race started between the two companies to reach space first. NASA paid a lower price to SpaceX but it started sending astronauts to space before Boeing. Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has so far completed 13 missions through its Dragon capsule. This was like an insult for Boeing, an old player in this field, so it also wanted to achieve this milestone as soon as possible.
Although Boeing launched the Starliner in 2017, it was not considered very successful due to frequent malfunctions. In the last flight of 2022, it successfully reached space without passengers, docked at the space station and returned to Earth successfully. Then this time it went back with Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to prove its capability, but the malfunction in the spacecraft again spoiled Boeing’s plans.
