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Boeing readies 'astronaut' for likely October test launch

Earlier this week, Boeing welcomed its newest astronaut to the Starliner team. Unlike other crew members, he doesn't have advanced degrees in aerospace or much experience at all. In fact, he's pretty dumb.

Meet the Boeing Starliner's anthropometric test device, also known as a crash-test dummy. Its name and gender have not yet been revealed, but a group of engineers and technicians suited up the dummy, which will fly on the inaugural flight of the Starliner spacecraft now slated to launch late September or early October from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

It took a team of five people to wrestle the rigid plastic dummy into the space suit. Melanie Weber, a Starliner design engineer, joked: "It's like trying to get a bride in a wedding dress when's she's gained 10 pounds."

The procedure brings Boeing one step closer to launching humans to orbit, something that hasn't happened from U.S. soil since the end of the shuttle program in 2011.

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