Hi, it's Zara popping in here. And just before we start the podcast, I have a quick favor to ask if you could press follow to The Daily Oz's podcast on Spotify or Apple. It would really help us get up the charts and help new audiences find us. Thank you in advance. And now let's get to the podcast already.
And this is the Daily This is the Daily ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS.
It is Friday, the thirteenth of September, an unlucky day, some would say, I'm Billy.
And I'm Zara.
Over the past few months, you may have seen headlines that two astronauts are currently stuck in space. Now, to be clear, NASA and Boeing have really tried to deny that these astronauts are stuck or stranded or whatever word you want to use that implies they aren't able to leave.
But we do know one thing.
The two astronauts were only meant to be in for eight days, but now they will be there for.
At least eight months.
So how did all of this unfold? We are going to get to the bottom of it in today's Deep Dive.
But before we get there, Zara. What is making headlines today.
A group of defense personnel who led Australian commands in Afghanistan have been stripped of their service medals. It comes after the twenty twenty two Brereton Inquiry found evidence of alleged war crimes within Australia's Special Forces from twenty five to twenty sixteen. Ben Roberts Smith was among those investigated by the inquiry, which identified the unlawful killing of thirty nine people in Afghanistan by or involving the Australian Defense Force.
The inquiry recommended several leaders have their Defense service medals revoked. On Thursday, Defense Minister Richard Miles wrote to a group of EIGHTYF commanders notifying them that they would be stripped of their honors over the alleged war crimes.
Nine CEO Mike'snesby has announced he will step down from the position at the end of the month. In a statement to the ASX, Sneezbey said quote, it has been a privilege to lead this business, but now is the right time to hand over to a new leader. Sneezbee was appointed to the role three.
And a half years ago.
His departure comes after nine announced it was cutting two hundred jobs, mostly in the publishing division earlier this year. Current Chief Finance and Strategy Officer Matt Stanton will act as the CEO from next month while the search for a permanent replacement takes place.
The US government has announced new security measures for the certification process of its next president in response to the January six riots. The attack on the US Capitol in twenty twenty one aimed to stop the certification of President Biden after he beat Trump in the twenty twenty election. The Secret Service has confirmed that the twenty twenty five inauguration process, which will see either Kamla Harris or Donald
Trump confirmed as US president, will have heightened security. A statement from the Federal Law Enforcement Agency said the measures are part of an effort to quote ensure the safety and security of the event and its participants.
And today's good news, an American cyclist has become the fastest woman to circumvent the world by bike. It took ultracyclists Lalel Willcox one hundred and eight days, twelve hours, and twelve minutes to cover an area of nearly thirty thousand kilometers. Willcox beat a twenty eighteen record set by Scottish cyclist Jenny Graham By sixteen days after finishing the journey in Chicago, the new world record holder said she felt like she could have just kept riding forever.
So, Billy, I have completely and utterly missed this story. And normally that would be because I have just not had time to read up on it. I have actively ignored this story because and some soclabaturing a full podcast because it makes me feel so claustrophobic thinking about this story. However, I'm going to let you indulge and let me know a bit about these astronauts who are stuck in space.
But for people like me who perhaps have been keeping away from this story, whether consciously or subconsciously, what have they missed?
I fear I'm only going to make you feel more claustrophobe. Excellent, so hopefully not.
Okay.
So this all starts with Boeing, who you will likely recognize as the US plane manufacturer who are behind many of the world's commercial flights. Now, as you probably know, they have had a bit of a rough year so euphemism, yes, adore on one of their aircraft fell off. They also had their CEO quit. They've just been at the center of several different stories, mainly around safety concerns of their aircraft. Now, the reason that we are talking about them today is
because of what they're trying to do in space. So this whole thing revolves around Boeing wanting to test their first crude spacecraft. So they wanted to send peop people into space on one of their own spacecrafts for the first time, and the intention of the launch was to test if Boeing's spacecraft, which is called Starliner, could become a safe, reliable, and sustainable way to get to the International Space Station.
I want to ask you about the International Space Station in the second. I don't want to get too stuck into this, but I would say that it has to be said. Someone has to say that they have been in the news a lot this year because of safety on Earth, and now they are in the news for safety in space. And I'll just leave that there.
Yeah, move on, I had to say it.
I'm glad it was you were not made.
Okay, but you mentioned they're the International Space Station.
What is that? Yeah, some people might not be too familiar with the International Space Station because it's certainly not close to home for any of us. So it's basically just a really large spacecraft that orbits Earth. I saw a fact before that it orbits Earth every ninety minutes. So it's going very fast, very very fast. And it is where astronauts basically just live in space. It's as big as a football field and it can house a
crew of six people plus visitors, so really large. They basically eat there, they sleep there, they go to the toilet there, they can go to the gym there, like it's basically its own little community and people have been living there in space since the first crew arrived in two thousand.
Okay, and so Boeing is sending their first crewed spacecraft there. Who are the people on board this spacecraft?
So there were two astronauts on board. Their names are Barry Wilmore who is also known as Butch, and also Sanita Williams. They are NASA astronauts, So essentially Boeing provides the spacecraft and NASA provides the astronauts. And this is both of their third times venturing to the International Space Station, so they're basically veterans of the industry. Now, this story actually begins a long time ago. NASA first awarded a contract two Boeing in twenty fourteen, so ten years ago
to provide crew transport vehicles to the International Space Station. Now, there have been lots of things that have happened in the past decade, but we're going to pick the story up this year. When the star Liner was first meant to launch in May. Now, that launch failed, and it was then followed by a second launch attempt on the first of June, and that also failed. But then on the fifth of June, so we're talking fifth of June this year, the launch was finally successful.
Three two one ignition and liftoff of Starliner and Atlas five caring two American heroes.
And the astronauts landed at the International Space Station just days after they launched, and it was live streamed at the time.
Lots of cheering here in the realm. Big hugs Sunny William coming through in her blue flight suit and followed shortly behind by commander of Starliner, Butcher Wilmore.
Now back on the space station, the third visit for both astronauts and.
The first crude flight test of the Starliner spacecraft. I wish listeners could see the footage of them arriving at the International Space Station. You can literally just see how happy they are to have safely arrived. They literally dancing, They're snapping their fingers, They're being embraced by.
Listeners.
Can't see, but Sara just decided to snap their fingers cue. They are being embraced by the astronauts who are already there, and it was just a really joyous moment, and they looked quite relieved again to arrive safely. Now at this stage, Sinita and Butch thought that they would be there for about a week. Spoiler they were not okay.
So I haven't felt claustrophobic at any point yet, but I fear that we are entering that territory very soon. How long after that moment that you just played did these two astronauts first understand that something wasn't right?
I mean, I think the whole time it always kind of seemed like nothing was kind of going to plan for Boeing. Like I said before, they had two failed launchers before they were even able to leave Earth, and that's only this year. There have been several issues in the past decade, but when they were on their way from Earth to the International Space Station, more issues arose. So whilst they were traveling, NASA and Boeing identified helium
leaks and also issues with the reaction control thrusters. Now full transparency. You might not know this sor up, but I'm actually not an engineer's shocking, So I'm not going to try to explain what exactly that means. But I think all we need to know is is not good. Yeah, it was not safe for them to come home at that point as was planned, and so their return to Earth starts to get delayed, and then it gets delayed again, and then it got delayed.
Again, and so it's at that point the media starts to pick up on this story and starts to report that the astronauts are stuck in space, right.
Yeah, And the media was definitely quick to raise questions about if these astronauts were stuck in space, but NASA and Boeing really quickly denied this one seeing in NASA employee Stephen Hershan, he called it outright sensationalism from the media and said that they were only extending the mission to collect more data. And they basically said journalists are not engineers and so they don't really know what they
are talking about. Now, in July, one thing that they did to prove that the astronauts were okay was hold a press conference. They can hold press conferences from space if you didn't know, so Sanita and Butsch took questions from journalists from space.
We've been thoroughly busy up here, integrated right into the crew. Every about once a week we get to jump into Starliner and talk to our control team there and work through all the new. Nuances are that they're working very hard on the ground to make sure that we will be able to come home before.
So again, that was in July, and at that point they thought that they would be returning within weeks, and they also thought that they would be returning on the star Liner. So the messaging was basically, we're just fixing a few things, but we'll see you.
Soon, okay. And so what happened from.
There so next, so basically going through a timeline here. So then in August, Boeing and NASA announced that the star Liner will be returning home in early September, but without Butcher and Sneda. So Butch and Santa will be staying in space, but the star Liner is umming yay, And they basically just said, and I'm paraphrasing, this wasn't their exact wording, but they said it wasn't safe for the astronauts to return on the star Liner and that
they didn't want to take that risk. So the new plan was for star Liner to come home and then for a different spacecraft, one owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX, would be sent to then pick them up. Just days after they announced that, we then find out that one of the astronauts, Butch, he is hearing a weird noise coming from the star Liner.
It's a strange noise coming through the speaker.
I don't know what's making it, but I don't know for something that's maybe connected between.
Here and there making that happen.
And we can configure that.
Butcher, give us a minute and I'll call you back when it's ready.
All right, Butch, that one came through so eerie.
I feel like if I was at home by myself and I heard that, that his torture, I would hate that. Imagine being in space and hearing that.
That's like when a fire alarm goes off in your office but it's not a real emergency, and then you just have to sit through it. That's what that sounds like.
Yeah, but I imagine that's why they are probably astronauts, because they probably come in those situations.
Now.
NASA later said about a week later that the noise had stopped and that it was common to experience noise, and they basically said they weren't any large concerns there.
I must say that, you know, I think for us this all feels so novel and so new, but you know, these people spend their whole lives preparing for experiences like this, and we now just have so much more access and so much more information, you know, to be able to hear sounds like that, and I'm sure astronauts have been hearing that, you know, every time, or at least some of the time. I do want to just pick back
up on the timeline that you're mentioning. So you said that the astronauts were going to be staying in space, but the star liner was going to be returning. Has it returned yet?
Yeah?
Literally, this week the star liner arrived safely back on Earth in New Mexico.
There you go.
Star liner has touched down.
So star liners safely landed. But the astronauts they are still in space.
If someone's not been listening to this whole podcast and there's you know, starting to focus just now at the very end, is the too long didn't read of this podcast that the astronauts are stuck in space?
I mean, I think it literally depends what your definition of stuck is.
My definition of stuck is being in space with no way of getting back.
Yeah, I mean NASA's narrow mind. I mean, NASA absolutely has not used that language or anything close to it, and they are still kind of just saying that the media is blowing this out of proportion. And they're saying that this was always a test, and that tests are never completely safe, and that they were kind of prepared for this.
I mean that makes sense.
Yeah.
I mean, though, if I was sent on a work trip for eight days and I wasn't able to come home for eight months, you bet I would be saying I was.
Stuck or convenient for us too.
But I'd be saying I was strounded, you know, whatever word described that I'm not able to come home, like I literally cannot get home.
But those astronauts they aren't using that language either. So maybe it's us normies on Earth who are like projecting onto these people who fully understand the risks that they have taken and are okay with how it's played out.
Yeah, it's us normies, but also maybe just us journalists in the media like you and I Zara. I think NASA would say that we're part of the problem.
On that note, are we expecting them still to return in February?
Yeah, that's absolutely the plan for them to be home early next year. I think no matter what, whenever they do get home and when they do safely return home, there.
Will be a very warm welcome for them, that's for sure.
Billy. Thank you for explaining that in a way that didn't make me feel deeply uncomfortable.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Daily Oz, whether you're on Apple or Spotify, or if you're watching us on YouTube.
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My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Adunda Bungelung Caalguton woman from Gadighl country.
The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.