Back in June, astronauts Butch Wilmoreand Suni Williams flew to the International Space Station But now, they’ll fly home next February in a SpaceX Crew Dragon — despite Boeing’s insistence Starliner is safe to fly them back. You know, it’s disappointing that they’re not coming home on Starliner, but that’s OK,it’s a test flight. NASA spent weeks analyzing issues Starliner developed on its flightto the ISS, specifically helium leaks and the overheatingof small maneuvering thrusters. That propulsion system’s critical to thereturn flight home, including undocking and the braking burn on the return to Earth. The small engines need to fire hundreds of times to keep the spacecraft in the precise orientation for safe re-entry andon-target touchdown. Instead, Starliner will return uncrewednext month. There was just toomuch uncertaintyin the predictionof the thrusters. It was just too much risk with the crew. “We continue to focus first and foremost onthe safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determinedby NASA.” But NASA’s decision is bound to frustrate the legacy aerospace giant, in what the spaceagency admitted wasa dramatic change. So how now do you begin to rebuild that relationship of trustwith Boeing? Oh, I don’t think we’re rebuilding trust. I think we’re lookingat the data and we view the dataand the uncertainty that’s there differently thanBoeing does.