NASA astronauts open up about being 'stuck' in space for 9 months

In their first public comments since their dramatic return to Earth, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore said they were surprised by the intense focus on their mission.

In their first public comments since their dramatic return to Earth, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore said they were surprised by the intense focus on their mission.

At a news briefing Monday at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Williams and Wilmore described their “unique” mission, on which they unexpectedly spent more than nine months at the International Space Station when they were originally supposed to stay for only about a week.

The duo launched to the space station in June on the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. However, they encountered problems with the vehicle’s thrusters during the docking process, forcing them to remain in orbit for 286 days.

“The plan went way off for what we had planned, but because we’re in human spaceflight, we prepare for any number of contingencies,” Wilmore said. “This is a curvy road. You never know where it’s going to go.”

Wilmore said he’s focused on what’s ahead and applying the lessons learned from his unusual mission rather than blaming any organization or anyone for what happened. But he said both Boeing and NASA, “all the way up and down the chain,” shoulder responsibility for the outcome of the flight.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-astronauts-speak-stuck-space-9-months-rcna198870

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