US Astronauts Stranded in Space by Our Weakened Character

Once, we were a country that valued excellence over mediocrity, triumph over defeat.

In 1970, when an explosion occurred on the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, Jim Lovell, the mission commander, told NASA HQ: “Ah, Houston, we've got a problem.”

A post-flight investigation revealed the engine was one cycle away from catastrophic failure. They aborted the idea of reaching the moon. The problem was getting the astronauts back to earth. Oxygen was running low. The astronauts improvised fixes, as, seen in the photo above, Mission Control engineers tried them out. One thing was clear, as NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz said, “Failure is not an option.” As the nation watched awestruck, the combination of ingenuity and determination steered the Apollo 13 capsule back to the South Pacific Sea, all three astronauts alive.

What a difference a half-century makes!

In June, NASA launched Boeing’ new shuttle, Starliner, and the two American astronauts, Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore were supposed to be gone for eight days. A malfunction in the Starliner’s thruster makes it too risky to use on the return trip. So Elon Musk has come to its rescue. Space X’s Dragon, refitted to accommodate the extra passengers, cargo, personal effects and spacesuits, will instead rescue them in eight months. As the Federalist rightly observed, NASA is downplaying the failure, and “the other embarrassing fact that the aerospace juggernaut Boeing, which was awarded $1.6 billion more than SpaceX, utterly failed to produce” a space craft comparable to the one manufactured “by Elon Musk’s smaller upstart company.”

The poor astronauts were chipper, taking the delay in apparent good cheer. They have long-since finished their assignments, and the International Space Station does not have enough sleeping containers for all the astronauts now on board. They will miss being with their families at Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. They gave lip service to NASA’s concern for their safety. But what about Boeing’s failure to have back-up systems to propel the thruster, built-in redundancy to keep our people safe?

Boeing has had its own share of problems this year. On January 5, an Alaska Air jet flew to 16,000 feet before a door panel flew off. The NTSB grounded all 200 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft as it conducted an investigation. Conclusion: the four bolts normally used to secure the door were all missing. They had been removed to repair five damaged rivets, and never reinstalled. If anyone was fired, it didn’t make the news.

Amid the near-misses in the skies, the FAA boasted that it will reduce the number of white males in its employ, and focus on hiring people with ‘severe intellectual’ and ‘psychiatric’ disabilities. Under the leadership of Transportation Sec Pete Buttigieg, this initiative is part of the FAA’s push for “diversity and inclusion,” which the agency insists “is integral to ensure safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond.”

The private sector is also embracing racial discrimination. Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, announced recently he is throwing out hiring on merit in hopes of filling 50% of all new jobs with women or BIPOC — Woke speak for Black, Indigenous or other People of Color. He sounds proud of hiring based on race and gender — Isn’t anti-white racism still against the law? — and says that in the future, all interviews will be conducted by — and jobs filled by — women or people of color.

These days, many companies are distancing themselves from earlier Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives — Jack Daniels, John Deere, Harley Davidson and now Lowe’s, the latest victims of Robby Starbuck’s activism on the issue. Starbuck says he messages the CEOs, warns then he is about to expose their adherence to woke policies, and, at least in recent months, they announce reforms.

“Boeing is a wonderful metaphor for our entire society,” said commentator Glenn Beck. “When we promote people because of their political views or their race or their sex — even if that sex is completely made up — instead of the content of their character, we will continue to have planes fall out of the sky.”

No one is against attracting more women and minorities to the aviation profession. It says something wonderful about our culture if we can showcase to the world the melting pot that is our nation. But not at the expense of merit. Not so rushed that they do not have the necessary training to do the job. Not if they mere are window dressing.

Surely that is the difference between our two political parties — one offers symbolism, the other initiative.

Let the Dems run on joy. I’ll take character, grit, enterprise. Hear me Houston?