NASA's Boeing Starliner astronauts could be left in orbit til February

• Technical issues prevented them from returning home as scheduled aboard Starliner.
• Boeing is pushing NASA to send the pair earthbound on Starliner, the Wall Street Journal reports — but some at NASA are pushing back over safety concerns.

The latest: NASA is readying plans to send the astronauts home aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft next February, agency officials said in a press call Wednesday — but has not yet committed to doing so.

• "I don't think we're too far away from making that call," NASA's Ken Bowersox told reporters. "We know at some point we need to bring Butch and Suni home."

The big picture: While some headlines have described the astronauts as "stuck" aboard ISS, that's only half true.

• They're stuck in the same sense that you might be stuck at the airport after your flight gets canceled — you'll catch a flight home eventually, you're just not clear on the details yet.
• The pair are not in any immediate danger aboard the station, and are living and working there alongside the existing crew.

Friction point: Sending the pair home on SpaceX's Dragon — a proven and reliable craft that greatly reduced the agency's reliance on Russia's Soyuz — would be a tremendous black eye for Boeing, which is already reeling from crises both galactic and terrestrial.

• The Starliner program suffered setbacks and delays all the way through Wilmore and Williams' trip to ISS, which was beset with technical issues.

What's next: NASA would certainly prefer to have two private spacecraft capable of flying humans to and from ISS.

• But if Starliner can't be trusted to do that safely, the program may find itself grounded.