I gotta believe that’s exactly how they feel. 
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At some point the novelty of getting to be one of the few human beings in space is bound to be overshadowed by “I haven’t had a clean change of underwear in over six weeks.”
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Nah, it’s all just fine:
https://starlinerupdates.com/
And look at the cute wallpaper you can still download:
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Boeing Starliner crew get their ISS sleepover extended
[…]
During a briefing on July 25, Mark Nappi, Vice President and Program Manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program, commented on the emphasis placed on the eight-day mission duration. “It’s my regret that we didn’t just say we’re going to stay up there until we get everything done that we want to,” he said.
Or maybe they shouldn’t have launched a stack they knew had unresolved issues.
The mission has breezed past that eight-day duration and might exceed ten times that before managers finally decide to bring the Starliner crew back to Earth. NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich said that a battery waiver to extend the duration Starliner could remain in space had been approved, doubling the time to 90 days. “That gives us a life, if we need it, all the way out through the early September time frame.”
They are grasping at straws now. The Calamity Capsule, sorry, Starliner is rated to stay docked for 45 days. Okay, so someone signed off something stating that the batteries are good for twice as long. What about fuel(s) and coolants, gaskets and the leaky helium pressure system?
[…]
Starliner has always been approved for a contingency return to Earth. Yesterday’s briefing represented an admission that September was now looking like a possibility for a nominal return and that plans were changing due to those pesky thruster issues.
“Contingency return” basically means “we’re reasonably certain that Starliner can undock from the ISS without smashing bits of it, do a de-oribit burn, ditch the service module, and the heat shield will hold.” How controlled the descent will be is anybody’s guess.
The capsule should return uncrewed. It is possible to arrange ride shares to get the crew down. They came up with contingencies for that a couple of years ago when it wasn’t clear yet whether the leaky Soyuz capsule could be used for crew return or not.
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Years ago, I saw an interview with Scott Kelly (Mark’s twin brother, also an astronaut), who said “When I’m on Earth, I just want to get back into space. When I’m in space, I just want to get back to Earth.” He mentioned steaks and swimming pools as things he missed a lot during his year-long stint in space.
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Yoink.
I read it as “If the ISS is broken and / or on fire, then the Starliner capsule will become the better option.”
Every time I hear news about its possible return date, I scream this.
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Re: Calamity Capsule
Credit where credit is due, The Register came up with this years ago.
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Re: contingency return
One of the cosmonauts returning on the damaged Soyuz commented on the flight along the lines of “could have been worse”.
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Luckily Scott Kelly’s year-long stint in space was planned that way, so he at least had an appropriate number (by NASA standards) of clean outfits to change into.
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How about watching a couple of films to pass the time…
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Probably not this one
I owe @FGD135 a Coke.
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Yeah, about that controlled descent. Starliner is designed to land on ground, not water, iirc. If the descent control is safe (no burn-ups) but not accurate, what happens when a Starliner capsule hits the water? 
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Starliner can deploy an additional airbag for an emergency landing on water.
I wonder whether it could land on, say an aircraft carrier.
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They used computers for testing and never even simulated human controlled scenarios. Boeing claims that human input is much harder on the engines, but somehow they failed to take manual maneuvering into consideration and it stressed the engines when the human pilots took control.
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Relevant for this thread here:
[…]
[NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager] Stich also said Crew-10 would be launched in February 2025 “to give a little bit more time for Starliner to complete the mods after CFT [Crew Flight Test] so Starliner-1 will moved into the August slot next year.”
The confirmation that it will be at least a year before Boeing’s Starliner will fly again is disappointing, but both inevitable and prudent considering the helium leaks and thruster issues that have plagued the test flight.
[…]
Almost a year for modifications? I think it’s not entirely unreasonable to assume that Boeing needs to address something that turned out to be a serious design flaw.
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Getting slightly off topic, but have you read his book about his year in space? I listened to the audio version and loved it. He narrates it himself. Highly recommend.
I don’t remember him mentioning steak, but missing everything about water came up. It’s funny thinking that after all that time in zero-G, he couldn’t wait to jump into a swimming pool.
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Running tests in orbit also makes sense as the thrusters that are misbehaving are on the service module which burns up coming back to Earth.
But yes, this is a hopelessly mismanaged project. If NASA had another choice I’m sure they’d drop Starliner in an instant, but they don’t want to be entirely reliant on SpaceX for manned access to space, or - even worse - Russia.
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Sort of addendum:
The plan for Starliner is (was?) to have two capsules that are used alternating to shuttle crew to and from the ISS roughly every six months and staying docked until the next one arrives. So the design specifications call for being able to be docked for up to seven months.
However, this test flight was planned to last maybe a week or so. (Hence the laundry issue.)
I don’t know how close this prototype comes to the eventual design goals. If it’s just the batteries that were intended to be good for 45 days (magically extended to 90 days) and the rest is already up to spec, fine. There will be a solution for the batteries if 90 days doesn’t work out. But hypergolic fuels degrade over time, and I don’t think Starliner is designed for in-orbit refueling. Not to mention that they can’t dump the old fuel while being docked, would need reliable fuel to undock and move to a safe (for the ISS) position, and the whole thing would be insanely dangerous.
The thing to do would be to try to land the capsule uncrewed, forensics on the service module be damned, and arrange for rideshares for the crew.
It looks like Falcon9 can fly again (human rated) soon. When Falcon9 can fly, Crew Dragon can fly.
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I know the degradation of hydrogen peroxide monopropellant puts a hard limit of six months on Soyuz missions to the ISS, I haven’t seen if that’s a problem for Starliner which uses nitrogen tetroxide and monomethyl hydrazine. Mind you, those are scary chemicals for all sorts of reasons even if they are ‘stable’.
BTW. I see Boeing has a new CEO today, I imagine their ‘In’ tray is something to behold.
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