Stranded in space
Boeing's blunders in orbit
Good morning, space cowboys. This is your Stock Market Rundown for June 25th, 2024. Thanks for tuning in today. Let’s get it started:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: SPACECRAFT SCREW-UP
Imagine your car breaking down on the side of the road, in Death Valley, in the middle of August. That’s sort of like the situation two American astronauts have found themselves in: stranded.
They’re currently stuck on the International Space Station. Only difference? The vast expanse of outer space is even more hostile than the sweltering desert.
Here’s how it went down: the astronauts launched from earth aboard Starliner, a Boeing-built spacecraft, earlier this month, and arrived at the ISS the next day.
NASA and Boeing officials knew the Starliner rocket had a helium leak before it took off, but thought it was no biggie. (Maybe the fact that the program was years behind schedule and more than $1.5 billion over budget made them just a little bit too eager to rush the launch.)
Bad news: once the craft was in orbit, it sprung four more helium leaks. The astronauts made it to the space station, but now there’s doubt over whether the craft can make the trip home to Planet Earth safely.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Boeing. The aerospace company has suffered a string of embarrassing mechanical snafus and management scandals—from whistleblowers alleging quality-control shortcuts, to a door panel blowing off a plane at 16,000 feet.
Will the astronauts escape this stratospheric version of Survivor? Luckily, there’s a backup plan to hitch a ride home: SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to make a trip to the International Space Station in August. So if all else fails, Elon Musk can be their outer-space Uber driver.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Americans are driving fewer miles on the nation’s highways this summer, and the lower-than-expected gasoline demand is hitting refinery margins. Guess that family road trip to see the World’s Biggest Ball of Twine will have to wait until next summer.
Amazon’s next overnight delivery will be $5.9 million to the State of California. The retailer just got slapped with a fine for violating labor laws in its warehouse operations.
Digital comics platform Webtoon is preparing for an IPO. Wall Streeters doing research on the company can enjoy paging through comics with names like “My Naughty Deity” and “Vampire Husband”.
A Stanford study found that working from home two days a week reduced turnover while not hurting productivity. This is why we should all be working from home in our pajamas with a European soccer game on TV in the background.
And we're done for today, respected peers; let's gather again tomorrow morning for more nonsense. Yours in capitalism, The Axe
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