Tomorrow, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, a Boeing-built spacecraft is set to blast off toward the International Space Station, carrying a human crew for the first time. The astronauts have been in preflight quarantine, getting some extra practice for the historic ride through flight simulations. The rocket stands tall on the launchpad, with the spacecraft, Starliner, perched on top. The weather forecast looks nearly perfect.

This might be more exciting if we hadn’t seen it all before. Boeing’s first crewed launch was originally supposed to happen three weeks ago. The astronauts donned new Boeing-blue spacesuits, said goodbye to their loved ones, and strapped into a capsule perched on a rocket humming with fuel. Then a valve on the rocket malfunctioned, and the launch was called off and rescheduled. Then engineers discovered a small helium leak within Starliner itself. While analyzing the leak, engineers stumbled upon a “design vulnerability” in the spacecraft’s propulsion system, further delaying the test flight. It’s surreal to imagine that this spacecraft might actually get off the ground tomorrow—not only because of the recent trouble, but because these problems are just the latest in a string of issues.

Even if Starliner flies tomorrow, Boeing’s track record with this kind of spaceflight has so far proved spotty at best. That’s concerning because actual people are getting into Starliner tomorrow to jet off to the ISS. But the company’s record also matters because every Boeing misstep leaves the United States ever more reliant on its rival company, SpaceX, and its CEO, Elon Musk, to transport its astronaut to space. Boeing doesn’t need to be the most groundbreaking or exciting American aerospace company to fulfill its duty to NASA. It merely needs to be a reliable transportation provider for America’s astronaut corps. And with this flight, it must prove that Starliner can simply work.

In 2011, after three decades of service, 135 missions, and two deadly disasters, America’s venerated fleet of space shuttles went into permanent retirement. But the country still needed a way to send its astronauts to the International Space Station, which demands constant staffing. So NASA turned to the private sector for help. It hired two companies—one young and inventive, the other established and staid—to develop new rides for its commuting spacefarers. SpaceX brought its first duo of astronauts to the ISS in the spring of 2020, in the thick of the pandemic. Since then, SpaceX has been consistently transporting four-person crews to the station, inside the company’s Dragon spacecraft and on its Falcon 9 rocket.

[Read: SpaceX’s riskiest business]

And Boeing … Well, last year, NASA’s second-in-command, Pam Melroy, told The Washington Post that Boeing’s inability to cross over into operational Starliner flights was "existential." In addition to the most recent round of software glitches and faulty hardware, Starliner has suffered repeated complications that have set it several years behind schedule. Boeing and SpaceX started out at roughly the same pace, both launching their respective new astronaut capsule to the ISS for the first time in 2019. But whereas SpaceX’s test went off without a hitch, Boeing’s was cut short. I still remember the eerie silence that settled over the press site at Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, when officials realized that Starliner’s flight software had malfunctioned, and the spacecraft couldn’t reach the space station. Then, as Starliner made its way home, engineers discovered and fixed a software error that, if left uncorrected, could have resulted in a catastrophic failure.

Boeing didn’t complete a successful uncrewed mission until 2022, and has spent the past two years fixing still more issues. Every new space vehicle turns up problems for manufacturers to troubleshoot and iron out, and delays are common in the industry. But Boeing’s struggles have only compounded in recent weeks, when engineers made concerning discoveries about Starliner after NASA and Boeing officials had determined that the spacecraft was finally ready to fly.

Technicians have since replaced the wonky valve on the rocket, a frequently used vehicle from the manufacturer United Launch Alliance. Officials have decided not to plug the helium leak, determining that it doesn’t pose a safety hazard. An analysis of the propulsion system’s design vulnerability on Starliner determined that it could prevent the spacecraft from carrying out the maneuvers necessary to return to Earth, but only under rare circumstances. Engineers have also brainstormed several temporary solutions to the latter. Boeing officials said they’ll apply a permanent fix to later Starliner flights, but for now, the teams have decided the spacecraft is fine to launch as is.

At a press conference last week, Mark Nappi, the manager of Boeing’s commercial-spaceflight program, said that although his team had missed the design weakness, he wasn’t concerned about Boeing’s process for determining flight readiness. "Hardware issues or hardware failures are just part of our business," Nappi said. "They are going to occur as we do launch preps; they’re going to occur in flight." Uncovering anomalies is indeed a natural part of the spaceflight industry. But such reasoning might not sound reassuring to the public. (Earlier today, a Boeing spokesperson told me that the company has no additional comment on the latest issues and pointed to Nappi’s recent remarks.)

All of this drama is unfolding while Boeing is under intense scrutiny for other recent events: this year’s infamous panel-blowing-off-the-plane-mid-flight incident and two fatal crashes several years before that. The company’s air and space divisions are two separate entities, and air travel and spaceflight are, of course, enormously different experiences. Starliner staff has NASA personnel watching over their shoulders, especially after the space agency admitted in 2020 that its oversight had previously been "insufficient." But the departments are part of the same embattled company, which faces multiple government investigations and the loss of its CEO amid the ongoing safety crisis. With every delay and bad surprise, the space part of Boeing will have a harder time convincing the government and the public that it’s the more capable, responsible sibling.

[Jerry Useem: Boeing and the dark age of American manufacturing]

Boeing is supposed to make six regular-service flights for NASA in the coming years. In so doing, it would help fulfill the agency’s desire to have more than one form of astronaut transportation in operation. NASA leaders have touted competition among contractors as a way to make spaceflight cheaper, but they also have more pressing motivators than cost. If SpaceX, the agency’s current sole provider, has to suddenly ground its spaceships, NASA would have to consider turning to Russia for rides again. This arrangement brought NASA through the post-shuttle years from 2011 to 2020, but some members of Congress have always resented the arrangement.

Now NASA has once again deemed Boeing ready to attempt a crewed Starliner flight, and is projecting a fairly calm attitude about Starliner’s latest round of problems. When asked whether NASA was concerned that the issues hadn’t been found sooner, leaders emphasized that the inaugural crewed mission is a test flight. In fact, all of the 135 flights the space shuttles made could be considered test flights, "because we learned something on every single one of those flights," Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator, said at the press conference last week. More than half a century in, spaceflight remains a dangerous production. By informally labeling every mission a test flight, NASA risks diminishing the importance of accountability for problems that arise, especially in the aftermath of a harrowing or even deadly event.

Tomorrow’s launch, if it happens, will mark only the beginning of Boeing’s high-stakes demonstration. Starliner must deliver the astronauts assigned to it—the former military pilots Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams—to the space station, protect them during a fiery atmospheric reentry, and land them in the New Mexico desert. In a recent post about Wilmore and Williams on X, Chris Hadfield, a retired Canadian astronaut who flew on two shuttle missions, wrote, “We’ve never been totally ready for launch—just need to convince ourselves we’re ready enough.” Perhaps only someone who has flown to space can say the quiet part out loud.

A long-rumored deal to form a strategic partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia looks doomed to fail because of Israel’s inability to accept a path toward Palestinian statehood in exchange for normalized ties with Saudi Arabia.

As the deal collapses, though, it is worth asking: What kind of relationship should the United States and Saudi Arabia aspire to? What is reasonable for each side to ask of the other?

On a recent trip to the kingdom, I spent a week speaking with Saudis from various backgrounds: wealthy businessmen from the eastern province, young Saudi women starting out in careers unimaginable to their mothers, senior government officials responsible for topics including privatization and foreign policy, and young Saudi men doing everything from starting their own law firm to driving for Uber after their government job had ended for the day.

Beyond their usual warm hospitality, and their patience with my rusty Arabic, I was struck by two things in conversations with Saudis: First, it is hard not get caught up in the infectious confidence they have about the direction their country is headed in. They feel like they are building something new—and judging by the innumerable construction cranes on Riyadh’s skyline, they are.

[Andrew Exum: A peace deal that seems designed to fail]

Second, there is deep frustration and even disillusionment with the United States. As a former government official, I am used to the regular complaints, such as the tiresome allegations that the United States is “abandoning” the region (despite the tens of thousands of troops that continue to garrison the Persian Gulf). But I heard newer, more disturbing concerns. At dinner with a dozen or so older Saudi men one night—almost all of whom had a degree from a U.S. university—I heard real reservations about sending their children and grandchildren to the United States to study: Gun violence, societal divisions, and populist politics in America were all cited as reasons to send their children to the United Kingdom or Europe instead. One Saudi who had gotten his Ph.D. in the United States worried that “the America I love is tearing itself apart at the seams.” And for what it’s worth, I heard something very similar from a group of businessmen in Singapore two weeks later.  

Yet I also found Saudis eager for a closer partnership with the United States. No country on Earth can match the United States when it comes to our technology, military power, and dynamic economy. (Joe Biden’s campaign would love for American voters to see our economy the way the rest of the world does.)    

But is it in America’s interest to forge a closer relationship with Saudi Arabia? As unpopular as the idea may be with many progressives, I think it is. Exciting changes are taking place in Saudi Arabia, and we should want to help advance them. Besides, in the Middle East, you tend to have either countries with a lot of people but not broad wealth, such as Egypt, or countries with a lot of wealth but few people, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the region that has both, which is what makes it such an attractive market for American firms. And it’s also what makes Saudi Arabia so tantalizing as a strategic partner: If Saudi Arabia could ever get its act together militarily, for example, it could be a valuable partner for the United States in the region and abroad.

The Saudis have a long list of things they want from the United States. They want investing here to be easier, for example. They complain about the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which scrutinizes foreign investment in sensitive technologies or crucial infrastructure. The process is necessary, but it could arrive at decisions faster, something Democratic administrations in particular have trouble making it do. And the Saudis also rightly complain that investments with no obvious national-security angle are heavily scrutinized. I spoke with many Saudis, from the most senior princes to ordinary businessmen, who took offense that the Saudi investment in golf of all things had become the subject of a Senate investigation. And really, who can blame them? Calm down, senators, it’s golf.

The Saudis also want access to more sensitive U.S. technologies, and there is a deal to be done here. The U.S. government paved the way for a substantial Microsoft investment in the UAE’s G42, a large AI firm, on the condition that the UAE would divest from problematic technological partnerships and investments in China. You “have to make a choice” between the United States and China, G42’s CEO, Peng Xiao, lamented. The United States and Saudi Arabia can and should strike a similar deal.

Security is a trickier matter, and here the United States should demand as much as it offers. The Saudis want a Japan-like security guarantee from the United States, but the United States should not offer this until the Saudis can meaningfully contribute to a military coalition.

The good news for both the United States and Saudi Arabia is that some of the reforms initiated by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—and not ones aimed at the military, interestingly—could allow the Saudis to develop military capabilities that have heretofore escaped them.

There is no reason, for example, that Saudi Arabia—a nation whose entire economy depends on the ability to move oil and gas over sea lanes—has no real navy to speak of. But training a navy is hard when sailors cannot be away from their families for more than a day or so at a time. Successful navies live at sea, and that’s not an option when the wives men leave at home cannot drive themselves to the grocery store or their children to school. That’s now changing, and it could be that we someday trace the development of Saudi Arabia’s independent naval capabilities back to its decision to grant greater independence to its women.

Saudi Arabia’s ground forces are likewise woeful. Developing competent ground forces involves deeply unsexy work—as far from a bright, shiny fighter jet sitting on a runway as possible. Infantry units must be physically fit and well drilled. I have yet to see a Saudi unit that is either. But it’s clear to me that young Saudi men and women are up for a challenge, and the Saudis should do as some of their neighbors have done: Build best-in-class special-operations forces from recruits who genuinely want to be part of such units and are willing to put in the hard work and pain required. Competent Saudi special-operations units that could function as true peers alongside U.S. units would do a lot to change the perception of Saudis among their counterparts in the U.S. military.      

Once Saudis have proved their ability to work alongside the U.S. military—and their ability to share the burden of clearing and defending the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb waterways—the United States should consider extending security guarantees. But not before.

[Read: The Israeli-Saudi deal had better be a good one]

Even if the United States and Saudi Arabia fail to conclude an agreement during the Biden administration, however, I am still bullish about the future of relations between the two countries. I speak to U.S. companies on an almost-weekly basis that are interested in investing in Saudi Arabia or partnering with Saudi companies. And despite reservations about the direction in which America is headed—many of which I share, as an American—the Saudis can’t take their eyes off us. I noted on my trip that many Saudis excitedly asked me about the pro-Palestinian protests taking place on our college campuses. They devour our films and media and political news, all of which are much more accessible than the same from, say, China.

The United States and Saudi Arabia seem fated to deepen their partnership. We should make that partnership as functional as possible.    

The wrong case for the wrong offense just reached the right verdict.

Donald Trump will not be held accountable before the 2024 presidential election for his violent attempt to overturn the previous election. He will not be held accountable before the election for absconding with classified government documents and showing them off at his pay-for-access vacation club. He will not be held accountable before the election for his elaborate conspiracy to manipulate state governments to install fake electors. But he is now a convicted felon all the same.

It says something dark about the American legal system that it cannot deal promptly and effectively with a coup d’état. But it says something bright and hopeful that even an ex-president must face justice for ordinary crimes under the laws of the state in which he chose to live and operate his business.

Over his long career as the most disreputable name in New York real estate, Trump committed many wrongs and frauds. Those wrongs and frauds are beginning to catch up with him, including his sexual assault upon the writer E. Jean Carroll, and then his defamation of her for reporting the assault. Today, the catch-up leaped the barrier from the civil justice system to the criminal justice system.

The verdict should come as a surprise to precisely nobody. Those who protest the verdict most fiercely know better than anyone how justified it is. The would-be Trump running mate Marco Rubio this afternoon shared a video on X, comparing American justice to a Castro show trial. The slur is all the more shameful because Rubio has himself forcefully condemned Trump. “He is a con artist,” Rubio said during the 2016 nomination contest. “He runs on this idea he is fighting for the little guy, but he has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy—his entire career.” Rubio specifically cited the Trump University scheme as one of Trump’s cons. In 2018, Trump reached a $25 million settlement with people who had enrolled in the courses it offered.

Eight years later, Rubio has attacked a court, a jury, and the whole U.S. system of justice for proving the truth of his own words.

We’re seeing here the latest operation of a foundational rule of the Trump era: If you’re a Trump supporter, you will sooner or later be called to jettison any and every principle you ever purported to hold. Republicans in Donald Trump’s adopted state of Florida oppose voting by felons. They used their legislative power to gut a state referendum restoring the voting rights of persons convicted of a crime. But as fiercely as Florida Republicans oppose voting by felons, they feel entirely differently about voting for felons. That’s now apparently fine, provided the felon is Donald Trump.

What has been served here is not the justice that America required after Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election first by fraud, then by violence. It’s justice instead of an especially ironic sort, driving home to the voting public that before Trump was a constitutional criminal, he got his start as a squalid hush-money-paying, document-tampering, tabloid sleazeball.

If Trump does somehow return to the presidency, his highest priority will be smashing up the American legal system to punish it for holding him to some kind of account—and to prevent it from holding him to higher account for the yet-more-terrible charges pending before state and federal courts. The United States can have a second Trump presidency, or it can retain the rule of law, but not both. No matter how much spluttering and spin-doctoring and outright deception you may hear from the desperate co-partisans of the first Felon American to stand as the presumptive presidential nominee of a major U.S. political party—there is no denying that now.