The Boeing Starliner that took Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to space recently made a safe return to Earth, but the NASA astronauts are not upset to have not made the trip.
The Starliner landed without a crew early on Saturday, Sept. 7, according to NBC News, about three months after it launched on June 5 with Wilmore and Williams on board.
Now, Wilmore and Williams may be stuck in space for another five months. But during a press conference on Friday, Sept. 13, Willmore said he was “absolutely not” let down to know the ship made a safe return without him or Williams.
“That never entered my mind, and I don’t think Suni’s either, until you mentioned it,” Wilmore, 61, told reporters from the International Space Station.
He also noted, “You don’t want to see [your ship] go off without you, but that’s where we wound up.”
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
NASA HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Both Wilmore and Williams, 58, have “been involved from the beginning” with each and every process that went into assessing their spacecraft. “It was trying at times,” Wilmore explained on Friday. “There were some tough times all the way through.”
Entering the trip, Wilmore said he and Williams were aware that “things do not always turn out the way you want” on flights like theirs.
“Before we launched, we said, ‘We’re going to find things.’ That is the nature of [a] test,” Wilmore explained. “Every single test flight, especially a first flight of a spacecraft or an aircraft that has ever occurred, has found issues that’s things you just can’t think about.”
He added, “Ninety percent of our training is preparing for the unexpected, and sometimes, the actual unexpected goes beyond what you even think that could happen. And that’s just the way it goes sometimes because we are pushing the edges of the envelope in everything that we do — and it is not easy.”
Williams said there were “a lot of opinions” and data coming in as experts attempted to make the smartest choice possible about how to handle the delicate situation.
“I think it was really impressive for our leadership and our management to take the time and listen to everybody’s opinion, and to really understand where all of that was going,” she explained.
In the meantime, Wilmore and Williams are thankful to hear about all the support they have received from across the nation while they await their flight home from space, which is expected to take place in February 2025.
“There’s prayers coming up for me and Suni, both,” Wilmore said, adding that he and Williams “so much appreciate” the support.
