The livestream has begun for tonight's #NASA #Boeing #Starliner Crewed Test Flight, targeting 10:34 PM EDT.
@WordsmithFL How many doors will have upon arriving at destination?
@MrGoat Not sure I understand your question. How many doors on the spacecraft? There's one hatch for crew egress on the side, but there's another hatch on the top for docking with the space station.
@WordsmithFL It's a Boeing - it may have less doors when it arrives.
@MrGoat Ah, okay.
Both Boeing and SpaceX had NASA astronauts assigned to vehicle design. Boeing used crap components, unfortunately. But the two astros flying tonight were the ones who designed it in partnership with Boeing, and NASA has been all over this vehicle, so I'm confident it should go fairly well.
@WordsmithFL ah ok - well hope this one does well then.
@MrGoat All test flights have gotchyas. Hopefully this one's gotchyas are minor.
If anything, I'm worried about landing. Parachutes are finicky, but Boeing is landing on land somewhere around White Sands NM. A big airbag has to deploy the cushion the landing. It's been tested umpteen times but one never knows.
@MrGoat There have already been two uncrewed test flights. The first one went poorly, so NASA made them do a second one which went better.