Reintegrating Boeing Crew Flight Test Astronauts with NASA Rituals | Technology

Oleg Kononenko shakes arms with Suni Williams throughout a change of command ceremony on the ISS on September 22. (credit score: NASA+)

by Deana L. Weibel
Monday, September 30, 2024

On September 22, 2024, a wierd rupture within the regular actions of the International Space Station (ISS) and its consistently altering crew got here to an official shut with a standard “change of command ceremony.” (Dinner 2024) The circumstances resulting in this ceremony, nonetheless, had been something however conventional. The Expedition 71 crew had arrived on April 6, 2024, and Oleg Kononenko took his place because the ISS commander. Exactly two months later, on June 6, 2024, the Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) introduced veteran astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to the ISS for what was presupposed to be an eight-day mission. When sure points with the Starliner capsule “Calypso” turned obvious, NASA, after some deliberation, determined to ship the spacecraft again to Earth with out its passengers. This left Williams and Wilmore as sudden, un-planned-for crew, each a part of and aside from, Expedition 71.

I used to be contacted by journalist Elizabeth Howell, who was taking a really social scientific view of the scenario for an article she was writing (Howell 2024a). She was curious in regards to the “the unusual-ness of a mission transition in space without that ritual.” While this would possibly seem to be a wierd query to many within the house group, I instantly understood what she meant. When anthropologists like me examine humanity, we take a look at folks all around the world. We are concurrently fascinated about what human beings have in frequent (many people imagine in a vital sameness within the human mind and cognition.) At the identical time there may be additionally lots of variation, with cultural variations typically serving as a method to mark group id. One factor that every one human teams appear to have frequent is the existence of rituals. Rituals could also be non secular in nature, however they don’t need to be. The most necessary factor about rituals might be what they do, which is commonly to point transitions between totally different states of being or totally different identities.

To use the instance of a spiritual ritual, baptism is a approach that some Christian church buildings acknowledge a start and present acceptance and approval of that start by welcoming the toddler into the group (different church buildings delay baptism to a later age.) In church buildings the place toddler baptism takes place, the exercise could have a supernatural perform, nevertheless it additionally serves a social goal. The baptism ceremony reminds the newborn’s dad and mom that they're supported by a bunch who cares about them, whereas concurrently reminding the group that they've a brand new accountability to their latest member. Many rituals are ways in which human societies persuade themselves they've some management over one thing that occurs naturally. Think of a bar mitzvah ceremony: You can’t cease your little one from changing into an grownup, however a ritual recognizing this transition and reintegrating your little one as an grownup offers you one thing to regulate and a method to give your blessing.

Non-religious teams with unique membership (like NASA) additionally depend on rituals. When an individual joins the navy they could undergo primary coaching, or boot camp. This is a secular type of “initiation rite” that denotes one other transition, from outsider standing to insider standing. The navy itself, in all of its branches, tends to be filled with rituals. Hope College Religion professor Dru Johnson, for example, describes navy ritual practices in his e-book Human Rites: The Power of Rituals, Habits, and Sacraments. Johnson explains that “basic military training may be one of the most ritualized experiences in the world. It blows religious rituals out of the water in terms of meticulous performances. The military scripts and choreographs everything so that it’s done just so: picking up a fork in the chow hall, folding underwear with tweezers and a ruler, marching in exact synchronicity, and on and on.” (Johnson 2019) He goes on to clarify that the navy rituals he needed to observe throughout his Air Force coaching served to encourage belief and dedication, creating a way of cohesion. Rituals are additionally related with circumstances the place people could have much less management than they want. They are a approach of enhancing luck or asking for assist from the powers that be, and NASA, just like the nautical tradition that preceded it, tends to have many rituals and superstitions meant to clean out adjustments and make transitions simpler.

When much less predictable adjustments occur, just like the shift within the Apollo 13 mission from a Moon touchdown to a determined race for survival, or when Sergei Krikalev went to the Mir house station in May 1991 as a member of the us and returned in March 1992 to a remodeled nation, Russia, typically these rituals of transition get misplaced. We noticed what occurs when rituals had been misplaced in the course of the months of the COVID-19 quarantine. Research carried out throughout and after that point by anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and others instructed that life transitions like funerals didn't have the identical impact of closure once they had been carried out on-line, and that the transition into married life for {couples} wed in the course of the quarantine with out households and pals being current was tougher.

For Williams and Wilmore, there was a transition, a largely sudden one, from being Starliner crewmembers to changing into surplus crewmembers on the ISS. Reports indicated that the ISS crew needed to ration meals to some extent, that Williams and Wilmore needed to borrow clothes, and ended up taking over chores already assigned to Expedition 71 crewmembers. (Kluger 2024) The entire scenario left Williams and Wilmore in a wierd “halfway” id, the place they had been CFT crew, then misplaced that id, however by no means absolutely turned Expedition 71 crew. In the identical approach that the aforementioned cosmonaut Krikalev (who was residing within the Mir house station when the Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991) appeared to be each Soviet and Russian whereas being neither Soviet nor Russian, taking over a brief “statelessness,” Williams and Wilmore discovered themselves oddly “missionless.” Without ritual, reintegration turns into troublesome.

When I used to be first requested about this case and the impression of the shortage of formality, I assumed this may stand out within the historical past of NASA as a scenario just like (though far much less harmful than) Apollo 13, one other occasion the place sudden turns modified the mission into one thing else solely, creating a brand new second in historical past. The CFT mission could be remembered a rupture within the routine, unmarked by ritual, maybe the start of one thing new. I assumed Williams and Wilmore would stay liminal (actually “in the doorway,” regardless of its modern use in “liminal spaces” video games), half-CFT and half-Expedition 71, becoming into neither absolutely, left to do the cast-off chores in borrowed clothes … a minimum of for some time.

I used to be incorrect. The goal of formality is to clean over such ruptures, patch holes in regular goings-on, and provides approval to issues we are able to’t management. Rituals have the ability to take folks faraway from their regular place in society by circumstance or alternative and reintegrate them in good standing. In this case, crews had been modified, missions had been adjusted, and Williams and Wilmore had been pulled out of their liminality into fully-realized, way more acceptable new roles, as members of Expedition 72. Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson had been minimize from the mission (Howell 2024b) to make room, and go away obtainable return flight lodging, for Williams and Wilmore. Although the CFT astronauts had been by no means meant to be a part of Expedition 72, they weren't solely introduced into the mission, however Sunita Williams was named the commander of the ISS till SpaceX Crew 9’s anticipated return to Earth in February 2025. With this choice, the “liminal” CFT crew, who had turn into weirdly “missionless,” got a transparent id. The choice to make Williams commander gave this shift simple emphasis and allowed a traditional ritual of transition to happen, the change of command ceremony.

The change of command ceremony was a transforming of an present Navy ritual dropped at the ISS by Expedition 1 Commander, William M. (Bill) Shepherd. The unique change of command ceremony (frequent all through totally different navy branches) appears to have began within the 1700s, when “organizational flags were developed with color arrangements and symbols unique to each unit. The flag served as a rallying point and reminder of their allegiance to their leader during battle. To this flag and its commander, military members dedicated their loyalty and trust. Because of its symbolic nature, when a change of command took place, the flag was passed to the individual assuming command in the presence of the entire unit.” (“Change of Command Ceremony,” 403rd Wing)

Astronauts Brent Jett (left) and Bill Shepherd ring a bell on the ISS in the course of the STS-97 shuttle mission to the ISS. (credit score: NASA)

The change of command ceremony first occurred on the ISS when Expedition 1 commander Shepherd welcomed the brand new Expedition 2 commander, Yury V. Usachev. Instead of passing an organizational flag, nonetheless, the transition was marked by the ringing of a bell, described within the April 6, 2001, Space Center Roundup (a JSC worker newspaper) as, “an old Navy tradition of ringing a bell to announce the arrival or departure of someone to a ship.” (“Welcome Home Expedition 1,” 2001) STS-97 mission commander Brent W. Jett’s standing as a US Navy captain in all probability contributed to using the bell. The change of command ceremony has continued since then over dozens of missions, creating a way of normalcy and cozy routine throughout instances of transition. In a 2020 interview, Bill Shepherd defined:

(We) thought, you recognize, the Navy has an extended custom of doing this, and it’s the Royal Navy within the UK, the Russian Navy does it, the U.S. Navy does it. Then you may have this little ceremony the place you say, OK, tremendous, right here’s the crew, and we’re going to inform you one thing, and right here’s the brand new man who’s in cost. And that is what he’s going to do, and so it’s a change of command. And we thought that was a very necessary cultural factor to introduce to the house station. (“Expedition 1,” NASA, October 6, 2023)

On September 22, 2024, the Change of Command Ceremony occurred once more, with Expedition 71 commander Oleg Kononenko passing authority over the ISS to Expedition 72 commander Sunita Williams. He handed an area station hatch key to Williams, saying he was leaving the ISS in her “delicate hands.” (Dinner 2024) The bell was rung, marking the completion of the ritual and calling to thoughts (a minimum of to me!) the way in which the primary kiss of a newly married couple after their wedding ceremony marks the beginning of their new life collectively. Williams and Wilmore had been fully reintegrated as NASA crewmembers when that bell was rung – they had been now full members of Expedition 72.

After that second it was Williams’ flip to talk. First, she acknowledged the strangeness of the liminality she and Wilmore had skilled, stating, “This Expedition 71 has taught all of us a lot about flexibility, the ability to adapt to a number of amazing things. A lot of things weren't planned and somehow you guys put it all together and did it. It's pretty amazing, pretty impressive. You adopted Butch and I, even though that was not quite the plan, but here we are as part of the family.” Then, getting into her new commander function, she did precisely as anticipated and thanked the departing crew members—Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Tracy Caldwell-Dyson—with heat and friendship. (“NASA’s Suni Williams Becomes ISS Commander for 2nd Time in Ceremony,” YouTube)

Social sciences like anthropology and sociology have lengthy argued that “liminal states are threatening both to the self and to the social group” with rituals serving to “eas(e) the transition from one place in the social structure to another.” (Gusfield 1984) Social teams are inclined to abhor liminality the identical approach nature is commonly stated to abhor a vacuum. By transferring Sunita Williams right into a command place on the ISS, a transition that prompted a ritual, NASA helped heal the strangeness and uncertainty of the CFT crew’s prolonged keep on the ISS, reintegrating the so-called “stranded” astronauts (Rannard 2024) into Expedition 72 and restoring normalcy.

References

“Change of Command Ceremony.” 403rd Wing. Accessed September 26, 2024.

Dinner, Josh. “Boeing Starliner Astronaut Suni Williams Takes ISS Command as 8-Day Mission Turns into 8 Months (Video).” Space.com, September 24, 2024.

“Expedition 1.” NASA, October 6, 2023.

Gusfield, J. “Secular Symbolism: Studies of Ritual, Ceremony, and the Symbolic Order in Modern Life.” Annual Review of Sociology 10, no. 1 (January 1, 1984): 417–35.

Howell, Elizabeth. “Boeing’s Starliner Astronauts Speak Publicly Today for 1st Time in 2 Months: Watch It Live.” Space.com, September 13, 2024a.

Howell, Elizabeth. “SpaceX Crew-9 Dropped 2 NASA Astronauts from ISS Mission, but They Were Prepared (Video).” Space.com, September 26, 2024b.

Johnson, Dru. Human rites: The energy of rituals, habits, and sacraments. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019.

Kluger, Jeffrey. “How Two Stranded Astronauts Are Camping out in Space.” Time, August 13, 2024.

“NASA’s Suni Williams Becomes ISS Commander for 2nd Time in Ceremony.” YouTube. Accessed September 26, 2024.

Rannard, Georgina. “Being Left behind by Starliner Craft Was Hard, Say Stranded Astronauts.” BBC News, September 13, 2024.

“Welcome Home Expedition 1.” Space Center Roundup. April 6, 2001.

Deana L. Weibel, Ph.D. is a Professor of Anthropology at Grand Valley State University with a joint appointment in GVSU’s Brooks College Religious Studies program. She has held a lifelong curiosity in voyages, learning pilgrimage, tourism, and scientific expeditions and the cultural, non secular, and religious meanings they, and the locations visited, maintain for individuals who journey. A member of the American Anthropological Association and a Fellow of the Explorers Club (and present chair of the Chicago/Great Lakes Chapter of the latter), Weibel has performed ethnographic subject analysis in numerous settings, together with the Black Madonna shrine of Rocamadour, France; Spaceport America; and the Vatican Observatory. Her web site is http://www.deanaweibel.space.

Note: we at the moment are moderating feedback. There might be a delay in posting feedback and no assure that every one submitted feedback might be posted.