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NASA’s astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore said that they hold themselves partly responsible for what went wrong on their space sprint-turned marathon and would fly on Boeing’s Starliner again.
Days after returning to Earth following their nine-month-long stay on the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams shared their reactions to the unexpected extension of their mission.
To a reporter's question to Butch Wilmore on whom he would place the blame for the mission that did not go as planned, he said, "There were some issues that happened with Starliner. There were some issues which of course prevented us from returning... If I were to start pointing fingers, I’ll start and point the finger and I’ll blame me. I could have asked some questions and the answers to those questions could have turned the tide,” he told reporters.
"All the way up and down the chain. We all are responsible. We all own this."
"Blame, I don't like that term - but certainly there's responsibility, and you can start with me."
Butch Wilmore refuses to blame anyone specifically for the challenges during the space mission after being stranded for more than nine months on the International Space Station. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/6JAUOLbYof
"Blame, I don't like this term... We are all responsible, NASA and Boeing too. Trust is very important. We are not going to look back and say 'this person or that entity is to be blamed'. We are going to look forward and say 'how do we use the lessons we learned from this whole process and make sure we are successful in future," Wilmore said.
On whether they would go on the Starliner again, he said, "Yes, because we are going to rectify, fix, make it work. Boeing is completely committed. NASA is completely committed."
Both astronauts said they would strap into Starliner again. “Because we’re going to rectify all the issues that we encountered. We’re going to fix them. We’re going to make it work,” Wilmore said, adding he’d go back up “in a heartbeat.”
Williams noted that Starliner has “a lot of capability” and she wants to see it succeed. “We’re all in,” she said.
The two will meet with Boeing leadership on Wednesday to provide a rundown on the flight and its problems.
“It’s not for pointing fingers,” Wilmore said. “It’s just to make the path clearer going forward.”
"We were always coming back," NASA Astronaut Suni Williams said Monday. She called her unexpectedly long mission to space a lesson in resilience. Hear what else she had to say: https://t.co/lyksBsJocw pic.twitter.com/xEB69CYrTv
— WCNC Charlotte (@wcnc)“We were always coming back, and I think people need to know that,” Sunita Williams said. “We’re back to actually, you know, share our story with so many people, because … it’s unique, and there’s some lessons learned to it, and part of that is just resilience and being able to take a turn that was unexpected and make the best of it.”
The 59-year-old astronaut and Wilmore were addressing the media in their first joint appearance after returning to Earth from a prolonged mission aboard the ISS as part of SpaceX’s Crew-9. They had been stranded in space for over nine months due to technical failures.
The Crew-9 team, which included NASA astronauts Sunita Williams, Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, successfully returned to Earth on March 18 aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. Their mission concluded with a splashdown off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.
Originally intended to last just eight days, Williams and Wilmore’s mission turned into an endurance test as their Boeing Starliner capsule suffered repeated technical failures, including helium leaks and thruster malfunctions. The troubled spacecraft was deemed unsafe for their return, forcing them to remain in space for over nine months until their eventual rescue.
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