NASA entered a new chapter in its prestigious history of space exploration when the shuttle was retired in 2011 after 30 years. 

The space agency relied on Russia to get U.S. cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), which cost about $90 million per astronaut for a round trip.

Under former President Obama, NASA turned to private U.S. companies to create a spacecraft to be less reliant on a geopolitical adversary. 

The Boeing Company and Elon Musk-funded SpaceX were awarded contracts in a public-private space exploration partnership, but each company had several starts and stops during development. 

There were helium leaks in the propulsion system and faulty thrusters engineers have been fixing over the last three weeks. 

The helium leaks “are all stable and not a concern for a return mission,” Boeing told Fox News Digital in an email Thursday, and four of the five thrusters that were shut down are “operating normally.”

Starliner remains docked at the ISS, where it can stay for 45 days. A new date to return the astronauts to Earth hasn’t been set yet. 

This predicament illustrates the need to have at least two reliable options to get to and from the ISS, Young said.

“It’s a great point to underscore as well, that these astronauts are not stranded because NASA does have this other system that is reliable and proven,” Young said. 

“That’s why NASA always has a redundancy, so that if something does go wrong with one program, the other is able to easily step in.”