Boeing will try to fly its troubled Starliner capsule back to Earth next week

The two astronauts who launched on Starliner will stay behind on the International Space Station.

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[NetMage]

But, what happens if an astronaut has a medical emergency? Does NASA return just the astronaut with the medical emergency (leaving the station without a lifeboat) or do all six come home leaving the station unoccupied?

That is one of the reasons for the crew swap. One crew would return on their lifeboat with the ill person, and the other crew with the ride swap person would be able to keep the station going.

There are normally seven crew on board ISS, four US (one rode on Soyuz) and three Russian (one rode on Drahon). Currently there are two extra that rode on Starliner. In the event of a medical emergency, only one of the Soyuz or Dragon needs to return with its crew. (A change in crew swap could also be possible, perhaps.)

 

[NetMage]

Then there is the question if space has a locality adjustment for the GS schedule pay. It would be hard to justify an adjustment since living costs are no doubt covered while in space.

Not a lot of useful places to spend a per diem in space.

 

[NetMage]

But perhaps the Ars comment system could provide more categories of click votes to allow a little more context.

The previous comment system had reactions to go with votes but they were not useful for much. There is a topic on the forums for how it could be brought back.

 

[NetMage]

It's 12 hours now because some people were abusing our unlimited editing window to go back and replace all their posts with periods etc.

I take it there is a single global limit?

I really don’t like punishing the innocent with the abisers, but sometimes you don’t have a choice.