Boeing launched astronauts for the first time Wednesday, belatedly joining SpaceX as a second taxi service for NASA. A pair of NASA test pilots blasted off aboard Boeing´s Starliner capsule for the International Space Station, the first to fly the new spacecraft. The trip by Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams was expected to take 25 hours, with an arrival Thursday. They will spend just over a week at the orbiting lab before climbing back into Starliner for a remote desert touchdown in the western U.S. on June 14. “Let´s get going!” Wilmore called out minutes before liftoff. Years late because of spacecraft flaws, Starliner´s crew debut comes as the company struggles with unrelated safety issues on its airplane side. Wilmore and Williams – retired Navy captains and former space station residents – stressed repeatedly before the launch that they had full confidence in Boeing´s ability to get it right with this test flight.