“We are letting the data drive our decision."

  • @zhunk@beehaw.org
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    5 months ago

    Maybe? Soyuz is too cramped, but Dragon might be able to fit extra people. A few years ago a NASA astronaut flew up on a leaky Soyuz, so they looked at using Dragon as a lifeboat:

    https://www.space.com/nasa-spacex-dragon-rescue-spacecraft-soyuz-leak

    Dragon was drawn up to fit 7 people, with 3 seats on the bottom and 4 on top. They ended up changing the seat angles for reentry, so now they only have 4.

    Starliner is still their emergency ride home in case a real alarm goes off, but they want to study the leak issue as much as possible before they separate their service module, which burns up during reentry.