Stranded NASA astronauts react to Boeing Starliner controversy: ‘There were some tough times’

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

NASA astronauts Sunisa “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore have spoken out for the first time in two months following weeks of hullabaloo over their extended trip to space.

“It’s been quite an evolution over the last three months,” said Wilmore. “And, it was trying at times. There were some tough times all the way through.”

The pair – Boeing Starliner’s test flight crew – launched to the International Space Station on June 5. They were expected to return within just a matter of days. Following issues with their spacecraft, NASA and its commercial partners made a decision to have the pair to return to Earth in February of next year – on a SpaceX Dragon.

The capsule is expected to launch later this month, with fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague, Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, and two empty seats. Of course, that means Williams and Wilmore will have to miss a couple of things back on Earth.

They’ll be voting in the 2024 presidential election from low-Earth orbit. Wilmore said he had sent his request for an election ballot today.

“In the back of my mind, there’s folks on the ground who said some plans, right? Like my family,” Williams said. “I think I was fretting more about that. Like, the things that we had sort of all talked about and planned for this fall and this winter. And, I think I was a little bit nervous, to be honest with you, to say, like ‘Okay, I’m not coming home for it.’”

But, that fret went away “real quick,” with the support they felt, and the reality of the situation.

She said she knows her family understands, and that the “up part” is they’re in space with their friends and have “got a ride home.”

The astronauts watched the empty Starliner land in New Mexico’s White Sand Missile Range a week ago. It took six hours from its departure to touch down. They were in contact with their control team as it made its descent. Seeing its parachutes open provided relief.

“We were up in the cupola, and we were watching our spaceship fly away at that point in time,” Williams recalled, noting that – as members of the US Navy – they’re “not surprised” when deployments are changed.

"I was so happy it got home with no problems," she added.

Both also reacted to questions about what had happened with Starliner and behind-the-scenes decisions.

A report from The New York Post in August detailed tense discussions between NASA and Boeing. Neither organization confirmed the reporting to The Independent at the time. Williams and Wilmore painted a different picture, with discussions that were thorough, passionate and compassionate. There were some disagreements, but Williams said she was impressed with NASA’s leadership.

Wilmore said that neither of them felt let down by Boeing, but called questions about Starliner’s shortcomings “fair.” He noted that going into space is a “very risky business” and that before its launch they thought they would find issues.

"And, sometimes the actual unexpected goes beyond even what you could think that could happen.”

Ultimately, Wilmore believes they “simply ran out of time” to fix problems, and found some things that “[they] just could not get comfortable with putting [them] back in the Starliner when [they] had other options."

He said they were very fortunate to have the space station.

"Eight days to eight months or nine months or 10 months – we’re going to do the very best job we can do every single day.”