A Blow for Boeing, and an Ambitious Flight for SpaceX
Boeing's Starliner program is seriously on the rocks now that NASA has decided to return its first crewed spacecraft on automated controls and its crew on a SpaceX spacecraft. Given the sheer number of problems they're dealing with, it's looking very unlikely that they're going to be able to fulfill their six-mission contract with NASA by 2030, the point at which the ISS is set to be retired.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is looking to launch another ambitious mission. Polaris Dawn is privately funded, but it is not a tourist mission. The four crew members will be in a highly elliptical orbit that will pass through the Van Allen radiation belts -- the first crewed mission to go this far away from Earth since the end of the Apollo lunar mission -- and the crew members will gather data and perform experiments that will give scientists and medical personnel a better understanding of the effects of traveling through this region of space.
Assuming Polaris Dawn goes well, it will be followed by another flight on a Dragon spacecraft, and ultimately one of the first crewed Starship flights, if not the first.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is looking to launch another ambitious mission. Polaris Dawn is privately funded, but it is not a tourist mission. The four crew members will be in a highly elliptical orbit that will pass through the Van Allen radiation belts -- the first crewed mission to go this far away from Earth since the end of the Apollo lunar mission -- and the crew members will gather data and perform experiments that will give scientists and medical personnel a better understanding of the effects of traveling through this region of space.
Assuming Polaris Dawn goes well, it will be followed by another flight on a Dragon spacecraft, and ultimately one of the first crewed Starship flights, if not the first.