How on Earth did Nasa leave two astronauts in space?

livemint.com:

On a video chat in early June from the International Space Station, Sunita Williams talked to a packed elementary-school gym in her Massachusetts hometown about how it feels to ride a rocket into space (like a roller coaster) and what life is like hundreds miles above the planet. “Being in space is a lot of fun," the 58-year-old astronaut said as her hair floated loosely in a dark halo around her head. She demonstrated a few flips, sipped tropical punch from a pouch and opened up about how people pass the time in the microgravity environment of Earth’s orbit.

“Sometimes we play hide-and-go-seek," Williams told the enraptured students. At the end of the call, a student asked a seemingly innocuous question: “How many days will you be in space?" For Williams, who was four days into what was meant to be an eight-day mission, the answer should have been clear. It wasn’t: “We’re not exactly sure when we’re going to come back." Williams and fellow astronaut and commander Barry Wilmore’s flight to the ISS was designed to demonstrate that Boeing’s long-awaited Starliner spacecraft was ready for service.

Instead, it revealed flaws in the vehicle’s propulsion system, which have raised questions over whether it can safely ferry its first human crew home. Butch and Suni—as Wilmore and Williams are often called—are now stuck in limbo. Months into their time in orbit, they are at the center of a roiling debate about the risks and future of human spaceflight.

This is a hard moment for America’s renowned space program, long the envy of the world. This historic test flight for the National Aeronautics and Space Agency and Boeing was meant to inaugurate a new way to enter orbit from U.S. soil.