Boeing’s Starliner is close to breaking SpaceX’s astronaut monopoly

The US wanted two redundant ways to get astronauts into space, and it now it nearly has them after an uncrewed Boeing Starliner arrived at the International Space Station over the weekend. The second privately owned spacecraft built through the commercial crew program after SpaceX’s Dragon, Boeing’s Starliner promises to expand both NASA’s scientific work and give a new option to companies and individual seeking transport to space. NASA initially partnered with Boeing in 2014 to build a vehicle to carry astronauts from the Earth to the orbital laboratory, but attempts at test-flights in 2019 and 2021 failed, revealing serious problems.