Marooned on the space station — a dream or a nightmare? | Space

We all get stuck somewhere sometimes when we’re traveling. In an airport overnight when your flight is canceled. Out of town when your car breaks down.

But how many people have been stuck in quite the harrowing way U.S. astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have? Not lost in space. Trapped in one place in space. They were launched in early June on a Boeing Starliner from Cape Canaveral, Fla., to the International Space Station on a mission to test the new vehicle. Well, it turns out, the ship has some problems — mainly with the thrusters that help maneuver and propel it.

A trip expected to take about a week has now become a two-month stay — with no firm end in sight. There is no Pep Boys in space. So the astronauts wait. It’s up to NASA engineers, in consultation with other astronauts and scientists, to decide whether the Starliner is safe enough to carry Butch and Suni — as NASA officials refer to them — home. NASA officials said they would make that decision after a final review in roughly a week.

If they decide it is too dangerous, the two won’t get back to Earth until they can hitch a ride on a SpaceX Crew Dragon ship that is scheduled to arrive in September with two astronauts. But those two won’t be done with their mission and ready to go back to Earth until about February.

Butch and Suni’s eight-day trip will have expanded into an eight-month…