THE NEW SPACE RACE: Boeing, NASA target May 1 for first crewed flight of Starliner to the space station.

Because this is a test flight, Wilmore and Williams, both astronauts with military test pilot experience, will perform some manual maneuvers during the trip to the ISS as well as on the return to Earth. Most of these actions won’t be needed during routine ferry flights to the station outside of emergency situations.

“What’s really kind of cool about Starliner is that it’s very much a pilot’s spacecraft. It’s really maneuverable,” Lammers said. “There’s close to 50 reaction-control and orbital maneuvering jets on it and there’s a stick. And what’s really cool about it is, when you have astronauts that are pilots, they really gravitate towards using it.”

Godspeed…