“The Daily Show” correspondent Michael Kosta can think of one career less embarrassing than working for Boeing. The Comedy Central host laid into on the company while discussing the Starliner spacecraft’s recent helium leaks.
“By the way, you heard right. That spaceship is made by Boeing. Jesus Christ, it must be so embarrassing to work at Boeing right now,” Kosta said. “Their engineers are meeting people at parties like, ‘Me? No. I’m Diddy’s publicist.’”
Boeing is currently in the middle of a pretty terrible 2024. After a door plug blew out mid-flight in January, more loose parts have been found on the company’s aircrafts, leading to several planes being grounded and ongoing lawsuits.
As for Sean “Diddy” Combs, he is being criticized after a video surfaced of the rapper physically assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016. This video emerged after Combs previously denied Ventura’s allegations of assault, a claim that was part of a now-settled federal lawsuit filed by Ventura.
On Monday, the return flight of Boeing Starliner spacecraft was delayed yet again. On June 6, veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams boarded the International Space Station as part of the test flight for the capsule. The original plan was for Wilmore and Williams to spend a week at the space station before returning to Earth. That return has been delayed multiple times.
June 18 was first proposed as their return date – pushed back to June 22 and then June 26. A new potential return date has yet to be announced. The reason for these postponements has to do with a slow helium leak, which the mission managers knew about prior to the spacecraft’s launch.
It was originally believed that the leak wouldn’t impact the flight or the safety of the astronauts, but that changed once four additional leaks were detected while the craft was in orbit. Because of these delays, what was supposed to be a weeklong mission has lasted for close to a month.
“Just so you know, there’s no real danger to these astronauts. They’re going to be fine. But leaky pipe — that’s such a boring Earth thing to go wrong, you know?” Kosta said. “Once you’re in space, you should be dealing with problems like a quantum overload in the dilithium crystals, not a leaky pipe. That’s something you call the super for.”
Kosta ended his monologue by interviewing fellow correspondent Ronny Chieng, who pretended to be an astronaut trapped on the International Space Station.
