{"id":7921,"date":"2024-09-14T15:07:18","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T15:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/14\/stranded-astronauts-say-space-is-happy-place-but-admit-tough-times\/"},"modified":"2024-09-14T15:07:18","modified_gmt":"2024-09-14T15:07:18","slug":"stranded-astronauts-say-space-is-happy-place-but-admit-tough-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/14\/stranded-astronauts-say-space-is-happy-place-but-admit-tough-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Stranded astronauts say space is \u2018happy place\u2019 \u2013 but admit \u2018tough times\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two astronauts who are set to be stuck in space for eight months have said the International Space Station is now their “happy place” but admitted to “tough times”.<\/p>\n

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams said in a press conference on Friday that it was hard to watch their Boeing Starliner capsule return to Earth <\/strong>without them last week – but said they do not feel let down by the company.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The pair expected to be in space for eight days but will remain there until 2025<\/strong> after NASA<\/strong> determined the problem-plagued capsule posed too much risk for them to return to Earth.<\/p>\n

The two Starliner test pilots – both retired Navy captains and longtime NASA astronauts – will now be staying at the space station until late February.<\/p>\n

“That’s how it goes in this business,” said Ms Williams, adding that “you have to turn the page and look at the next opportunity”.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Mr Wilmore said: “It’s been quite an evolution over the last three months, we’ve been involved from the beginning through all the processes of assessing our spacecraft.<\/p>\n

“And it was trying at times. There were some tough times all the way through.”<\/p>\n

Ms Williams said that the transition to station life was “not that hard” since both had completed previous stints there.<\/p>\n

“This is my happy place. I love being up here in space,” she said.<\/p>\n

Mr Wilmore said he was “on board” with “changes that need to be made” at Boeing.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, when you have issues like we’ve had, there’s some changes that need to be made.<\/p>\n

“Boeing’s on board with that. We’re all on board with that.”<\/p>\n

He added: “When you push the edge of the envelope again and you do things with spacecraft that have never been done before, just like Starliner, you’re going to find some things.”<\/p>\n

The pair also said they will vote in November’s US elections<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams are now fully-fledged station crew members, chipping in on routine maintenance and experiments.<\/p>\n

They, along with seven others on board, welcomed a Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American earlier this week, raising the station population to 12 – a near record.<\/p>\n

Ms Williams will soon take over as station commander.<\/p>\n

The pair will have to wait until next year for a SpaceX<\/strong> capsule to bring them back to Earth. That spacecraft is due to launch later this month with a reduced crew of two, with two empty seats for the stranded astronauts for the return leg.<\/p>\n

Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams also said they appreciated all the prayers and well wishes from Earth.<\/p>\n

Mr Wilmore revealed he will miss out on family milestones including his youngest daughter’s final year of high school.<\/p>\n

Their Starliner capsule marked the first Boeing spaceflight with astronauts. It endured a series of thruster failures and helium leaks before arriving at the space station on 6 June.<\/p>\n

It landed safely in the New Mexico desert earlier this month, but Boeing’s path forward in NASA’s commercial crew programme remains uncertain.<\/p>\n

The space agency hired SpaceX and Boeing as an orbital taxi service a decade ago after the shuttles retired. SpaceX has been flying astronauts since 2020.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two astronauts who are set to be stuck in space for eight months have said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}