PBS News Hour

GEOFF BENNETT: It was a picture perfect morning for a space launch.

WOMAN: And liftoff of Starliner and Atlas 5 carrying two American heroes drawing a line to the stars for all of us.

GEOFF BENNETT: Boeing today successfully launched its new Starliner space capsule carrying two astronauts, marking only the sixth inaugural journey of a crewed spacecraft in U.S. history.

The launch comes after several delays due to technical issues.

Yet today's launch occurred smoothly and on time and it comes four years after Elon Musk's rival SpaceX launched its first mission with astronauts into orbit.

The Starliner will dock at the International Space Station tomorrow morning.

And NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita Williams will spend a week before returning home.

For the latest on all of this, we're joined again by our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien.

Always great to see you, Miles.

So tell us more about these veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams and what their primary goal is.

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, veterans indeed.

They both have a lot of time in space, Butch about 178 days on one long space station mission, Suni 322 days over two long stints on the space station, both of them Naval aviators, Suni a proud graduate of the Naval Academy, test pilots through and through, good people to have an mission like this because they're wringing this vehicle out.

They will be testing the thrusters, the control systems, the space suits themselves, the docking capability.

They will try to fly it manually.

They will do everything they can to see where the bugs might be in this craft.

And there's been a lot of bugs along the way, so it's probably likely they will find a few as well.

They also have some important cargo on board, Geoff.

The urine processing system on the space station, which converts urine into drinking water - - yes, folks, that's what they do up there.

I have tried it.

It really is how they drink their water, how they get their water.

It has failed.

And so they are carrying the spare part to fix it.

So I guess you could say that's their number one priority.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Miles O'Brien.

OK.

So, the Starliner program, it's been beset by technical problems, delays, as we mentioned, cost overruns.

Why?

What happened?

What accounts for all of that.

MILES O'BRIEN: It's hard to say.

Now, it is a Boeing product.

And we have been talking a lot about Boeing, you and I.

This is a separate division of Boeing, its space systems.

Whether there is some commonality between what's happening with the airliner enterprise and the space enterprise, hard to say from the outside looking in.

But it's been quite a scenario starting in 2019 with software failures that caused the thruster fires to fire so long, didn't have enough gas to get to the space station.

It was really kind of a medium black eye for Boeing.

But, hey, today, they're in space and they're on their way to the space station.

GEOFF BENNETT: And this Starliner mission is a test flight required by NASA before NASA can certify Starliner for routine astronaut missions.

As we mentioned, there's this.

There's also the SpaceX program.

Why is NASA basically funding and supporting these two space missions by two different contractors?

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, SpaceX has kind of lapped them.

They have done a dozen flights.

They have flown 51 people to and from the space station.

The program has gone much more smoothly than the Starliner program.

But I will remind you there was a nine-year gap between the last shuttle flight and the first flight of a Dragon crewed flight to the International Space Station, nine years.

And what did we do during that period of time?

That is to say, what did NASA do?

It bought flights from Russia.

And in today's geopolitical environment, the idea of reengaging with Russia on a new set of contracts to purchase Soyuz rockets flights for NASA astronauts does not seem very tenable.

So it's about redundancy.

If one of those rocket systems fails in some way, if there's some sort of problem that grounds it, NASA will not have any means of getting to the International Space Station.

So, like any good space program, they like to have redundancy.

GEOFF BENNETT: That's a good point.

You mentioned Russia.

Let's talk about China as well, because they're very active in space too.

Where are they up to on the moon?

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes, it's very exciting that China, of course, flew to the far side of the moon and just 24 hours or so ago launched from it after scooping up some samples and rocks.

That spacecraft is on its way back to Earth.

It will land in Mongolia on or about June 25.

No people on board, but China has expressed clearly its goal to do so, to plant footprints and flags on the moon by 2030.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has been very vocal in the past months, saying that the U.S. is now engaged in a space race with China and that the Chinese program is militaristic at its core.

And, as a point of fact, the military does in fact run the Chinese space program, but there is a close alignment between the U.S. military and NASA as well on many levels.

After all, the two test pilots flying to the space station right now are both Navy veterans.

So -- but it is heating up a little bit.

I will say this.

Space races generally are good for funding of space programs.

So when you hear this rhetoric, keep that in mind.

GEOFF BENNETT: All right, that is Miles O'Brien, our science correspondent, also an amateur comedian.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Miles, thanks so much for being with us.

MILES O'BRIEN: Here all week.

(LAUGHTER)