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Astronauts NOT stuck in space: Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore react to Trump saying they were 'abandoned'
“We don’t feel abandoned,” Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore request everyone to change the rhetoric that they're stuck in space.
NASA’s Starliner astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have repeatedly spoken out against being ‘stranded’ in space since they flew to the International Space Station on June 5 last year. Doubling down on their stance, the pair broke their silence on President Donald Trump’s accusations against former President Joe Biden “abandoning” them.
Ahead of Valentine’s Day this February, the two astronauts again set the record straight, saying that they’re not stranded on the ISS. In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday, they were asked about their position regarding Trump’s claims.
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Astronauts in space reiterate they're not stranded, haven't been abandoned
Shutting down the rhetoric going around, Butch Wilmore came right out and admitted that even though he and Williams acknowledged why the pervasive narrative was set in place, it just wasn’t their reality.
“That’s been the narrative from day one: stranded, abandoned, stuck — and I get it. We both get it,” he said. “But that is, again, not what our human spaceflight program is about. We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded.”
In addition to clearing up the doubts about their space stay in many minds, Wilmore requested that they help them “change the rhetoric” to ‘prepared and committed.’
Sunita Williams said they were prepared for unexpected twists and turns
Given that Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore participated in Boeing Starliner’s first crewed mission, the Indian-origin astronaut admitted that they knew the ‘test flight’ would end with them finding “some things (wrong with Starliner) and we found some stuff, and so that was not a surprise.”
In yet another interview with USA TODAY, which took place before Trump and Elon Musk pushed for the idea that the astronaut duo had to be rescued, Sunita Williams said, “Being deployed for a little while is not unusual for any of us and that’s part of the game.”
She added, “When you come to some place that’s a little bit different from home, you might not come home right away.”
What Donald Trump and Elon Musk said
Donald Trump previously weighed in on Williams and Wilmore’s extended space stay, alleging they were “virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration.”
Meanwhile, Elon Musk divulged on X that the president had asked SpaceX to rescue them. “The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so,” the tech titan wrote. “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”
Despite the astronauts' recent interview, Musk again asserted that they'd been left in space for ‘political reasons.’ On Tuesday night, jointly appearing with Trump for an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, the SpaceX boss said, “They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good.”
“We have brought astronauts back from the space station many times before, and always with success,” Musk continued, to which Trump said, “They didn’t have the go-ahead with Biden.”
“He was going to leave them in space. I think he was going to leave them in space … He didn’t want the publicity.”
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Home ticket preponed: Sunita Williams' return date
After several news alerts about the Starliner astronauts’ Earth return being pushed back, NASA said on Tuesday that it is hoping to bring Williams and Wilmore and their teammates, NASA’s Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, in March.
The Crew-10 mission, which will carry ASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, will launch from Earth on March 12. Once it docks with the space station, the Starliner duo will hand over their research to the incoming team.
Thereafter, the team members will depart for home, with the arrival expected on March 19. Their return was previously scheduled for March 25. “The plan is that Crew-10 will launch on 12 March, complete a one-week turnover, and we will return on 19 March,” Wilmore told CNN.
