By DJ Stack
March 18th off the coast of Florida NASA crew 9 made a long awaited return back to the earth’s surface. astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned to Earth after an extended stay at the International Space Station. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams we’re originally set to return following an eight day mission after taking the Boeing Starliner to the space station. Although shortly after arriving the starliner was experiencing technical difficulties that resulted in the decision to have it returned back to earth unmanned. What was supposed to last a little over a week ended up keeping the astronauts for over 7 months.
Eventually SpaceX was chosen by NASA to retrieve these astronauts using their Falcon 9 rocket and their Dragon capsule. SpaceX has now become the most reliable privatized space travel company for NASA and has been for the past half decade. They have sent 138 rockets into orbit with a 99.3% success rate..The down fall of Boeing in recent years has been quite drastic to the point where the once dominant in both space and commercial aircraft company has been scrutinized by many former supporters and has lead to these government agencies looking elsewhere when offering contracts for future technological developments.
