The statement isn’t wrong. It may be a bit imprecise. The helium is indeed required to allow the thrusters to fire, since in spaceflight you can’t rely on gravity to feed the liquids into the engines, and the fact that it isn’t itself combustible is very important. The fact that it isn’t toxic is actually totally…

Oxidizer (often nitrogen tetroxide, in this application) is needed to combust fuel (often hydrazine). Helium isn’t fuel or oxidizer; it’s used for a different purpose: to pressurize the tanks so the oxidizer (or fuel) can get to the engines. On the ground or in an airplane, you can usually rely on gravity to feed fuel…

Well, it depends. In this case, they’re extending the mission in order to allow for more testing time. They are confident that Starliner can bring the crew home safely; they are not expecting to need them to shelter on the ISS until a Dragon can bring them home. However, they want to better understand the anomalies…

“It could help us learn more fundamental things about how coasts erode without the influence of people”

I’d prefer to fly by lines attached to migratory birds, like the Little Prince. Perhaps I would find myself on Asteroid B612, where I could find out whether or not the sheep has eaten the rose.  ;-)

Yes, they can. The FAA can revoke type certificates, and they can order groundings, which doesn’t halt production but it does mean they cannot legally fly the aircraft within US airspace, which makes deliveries effectively impossible.

Well, the second half of the roller coaster was the proper response. The first half was what caused the response, and it doesn’t seem as if that part was intentional, given that Southwest has already been willing to publicly call it pilot error in pushing the yoke forward.

Oh, he was PERFECT!

“X-Men: The Last Stand”. It was meant as the finale of the original trilogy.

It won’t create a solid shell, or anything, but the impact risk is certainly rising. Not so much of a risk to things launching from the ground as a risk to things that will be orbiting at similar altitudes; launch is an instantaneous risk, whereas residing in orbit creates a very long-term cumulative buildup of risk…

It was the third one that fell flat, IMHO.

I was going to post this:

I’m reminded of when I was working for Greentree Financial in the mid 90s. The CEO was getting a pay package that was a fraction of what Musk just got approved — as it was calculated as a percentage of the company’s reported profits, during the fat years, he was pulling in $200 million, which was quite extraordinary…

I think they may have run afoul of the biggest problem in tying the ship to Disney — offending the British market by relegating them to second place.

Oh my lord, he reacted to an entirely, 100% deserved negative review by cold-calling you and then *threatening* you? Definitely tops anything I’ve ever experienced (which mostly can be summarized as run-of-the-mill sexism; most service departments have treated me like a normal person, but some of act like because I…

“According to a recent study into the four privateer astronauts aboard the 2021 Inspiration4"

Because they signed a contract with them at the same time as the one they signed with SpaceX.

Good god, I don’t even want to see the oxidizer they find for that.  Dioxygen diflouride, perhaps?

“If this was a car you’d be looking up lemon laws.”

They fixed the Apollo design; they didn’t throw it out.  So SweetJamesJones’ point is valid.