NASA astronauts' surprising response to 'stranded in space' claim in first interview since returning to Earth
Stranded NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams finally returned home after their extended stay in space. The story surrounding both astronauts gained immense attention from the media. After their recovery, the astronauts had their first press conference back home, according to NBC News. Williams and Wilmore share their experience being onboard the International Space Station after their week-long mission turned into a nine-month stay due to a technical failure in their return capsule. The astronauts returned on Earth at the beginning of March 2025.
The NASA astronauts are surprised by the public attention that their journey received and the intense focus on the mission. The news briefing event was held at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on March 31, 2025. The duo describe this ‘unique’ experience on the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. The pair faced issues with the vehicle’s thrusters during the docking process, forcing them to remain in orbit for 286 days, as per the publication. “This is a curvy road. You never know where it’s going to go,” Wilmore said, though the crewed spaceflight was well prepared.
The media expected the pair to be annoyed by the ordeal, but surprisingly, they said that they did not want to “point fingers” at anyone. The astronauts also considered the mission fruitful and did not categorize it as a failure. “Space flight is hard. It’s really hard,” Williams stated. “I wouldn’t characterize (it) as they failed us. I would characterize it as, there was a huge team working together diligently to try to weigh all the risks of putting people in a spacecraft for the very first time with brand-new systems… and seeing how that was all going to work,” she commented.
Wilmore highlighted how narratives were spun on Earth while they were in space and how people might have been misguided. “OK, in certain respects, we were stuck. In certain respects, maybe we were stranded. But based on how they were couching this, that we were left and forgotten, and all that. We were nowhere near any of that, at all,” he said, as per Indy100. Nobody can be particularly blamed, but everyone involved, including himself, can be held accountable for the malfunction. “Is Boeing to 'blame’ and culpable? Sure. Is NASA to blame? Sure. Everybody has a piece in this,” he said.
Wilmore is now focusing on what is to come and has learned the lessons from such unusual missions to apply them forward. Blaming any organization or anyone was useless as everyone “all the way up and down the chain” had a responsibility for the outcome, he said. “You cannot do this business without trust. You have to have ultimate trust. And for someone to step forward in these different organizations and say, ‘Hey, I’m culpable for part of that issue,’ that goes a long way to maintaining trust,” Wilmore added. NASA brought back the Starliner spacecraft without anyone on board after the technical error.
There is much political commentary set around the events involving the astronauts who returned after an extended stay in space, but they do not pay heed to those. They plan on rectifying the previous issues and going back to space; until then, they are enjoying their time with their families. Williams and Wilmore returned along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who were finishing a six-month ISS mission. Though the astronauts were thought to be “stranded” in space, Williams and Wilmore repeated that they enjoyed living and working at the orbiting outpost.
