NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spoke about their continued stay aboard the International Space Station during a press conference yesterday. The two are now fully integrated into the ISS crew, as the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that was supposed to bring them home last week was instead sent back to Earth unmanned.
At the beginning, the two were asked whether they felt “let down” by Boeing.
“Absolutely not,” said Wilmore:
“This operation is not easy. NASA is doing a great job – the people at NASA are doing a great job – and making things look easy. Sending probes beyond the edge of our solar system, into [and] Taking samples from asteroids; people in space. It's a very risky business and things don't always go the way you want them to.”
NASA decided not to fly the spacecraft back with the two on board after finding engine problems and helium leaks in the Starliner. But Wilmore said that with more time, “I think we could have gotten to the point where we could have returned with the Starliner. But we just ran out of time.” Instead, the two became part of the ISS crew.
Williams, who Wilmore said will soon become ISS commander, said the transition to crewing the space station was “not that hard” because she and Wilmore had been preparing for the trip to the station for years before their flight earlier this year. She said their eventual return in a SpaceX Dragon capsule to conclude NASA's Crew-9 mission was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the two test pilots, adding: “We're excited to fly in two different spacecraft; I mean, we're testers, that's our job.”
Neither astronaut expressed dismay at being on board the ISS any longer. “Space is my happy place,” Williams said, “… every day you do something that is 'work' – you can do it upside down, you can do it sideways, so it gives you a slightly different perspective.”