Executives from Boeing and NASA had a series of heated conversations that devolved into arguments over how best to bring home the two astronauts stuck on the International Space Station, the New York Post reported Friday.

Senior employees from both enterprises attended the meetings, held in the days following NASA's announcement that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were unable to get back to Earth.

According to the report, Boeing argued that the Starliner was in good enough condition to make it home, but NASA strongly disagreed. A NASA executive told the Post, "The thinking around here was that Boeing was being wildly irresponsible."

NASA ultimately overruled Boeing and arranged for Elon Musk's Space X to bring the astronauts back. But that mission isn't happening until February. The astronauts have already spent more than 80 days in space.

NASA told the Post that Boeing was unhappy with the solution, adding, "And they made that perfectly clear to us. But what's the headline if there's a catastrophic failure? It's not 'Boeing killed two astronauts,' it's 'NASA killed two astronauts.' So no, it's better safe than sorry."

The astronauts blasted off June 5 in the Boeing Starliner's first manned mission to dock at the space station for eight days. They soon discovered that previously known helium leaks were much worse than they thought and that the leaks were causing the thrusters to malfunction.

The Starliner mishap is just the latest in a series of problems plaguing Boeing in recent years.

In January, a door panel blew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet while the plane was in the air. And nearly two dozen whistleblowers have come forward to express concerns over the company's safety and quality issues, at least two of whom have ended up dead.

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