The silence is deafening.

Deafening Silence

The bad news keeps stacking up for Boeing. Over the weekend, the aerospace giant’s Starliner softly touched down in the New Mexico desert, bookending a disastrous first crewed test flight.

But NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are still stranded on board the International Space Station after the space agency deemed Starliner too dangerous for their return.

And instead of trying to spin the landing into a victory, Boeing executives have been eerily quiet since. Two executives who were scheduled to speak at a post-landing press conference at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, seemingly decided last minute not to show up.

That’s despite Starliner faring much better during its descent than it did on the way up, giving them a clear opportunity to celebrate the otherwise technical issues-ridden capsule.

NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said during Saturday’s briefing that Starliner performed a “bullseye landing” and that “the entry in particular has been darn near flawless.”

In fact, the last time anybody from Boeing bothered to attend a Starliner press briefing was on July 25.

So far, all we’ve gotten is a rote statement from Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program manager Mark Nappi — which leaves the possibility of the company abandoning the project altogether wide open.

“I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing,” he wrote. “We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program.”

Dump and Divest

Tensions have been particularly high since NASA announced on August 24 that Wilmore and Williams would instead be getting a ride aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft by Boeing’s archrival SpaceX.

Starliner sprung several helium leaks even before it launched into space in early June. Nagging thruster-related issues added to Boeing’s growing headache.

Where all of this leaves the future of NASA’s alternative to SpaceX’s spacecraft remains to be seen. Given Boeing’s deafening silence on the matter, Starliner could be on thin ice.

Analysts have suggested that Boeing may dump the project, despite billions of dollars already invested.

“It’s unclear if or when the company will have another opportunity to bring astronauts to space,” Bank of America aerospace and defense analyst Ron Epstein told the New York Times last week. “We would not be surprised if Boeing were to divest the manned spaceflight business.”

For now, Boeing is taking the offending capsule to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for a closer look. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the malfunctioning thrusters were attached to Starliner’s service module, which separated from the crew module and burned up completely upon reentry, taking any relevant data along with it.

More on Starliner: When Boeing Starliner Returned to Earth, It Had Two Empty Spacesuits Inside