Stranded Boeing Starliner astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore have been caught in house for 264 days — on a visit that ought to have lasted a few week — however Williams’ mother says that the snafu was an honor and that her daughter is pleased aboard the Worldwide Area Station.
“It’s what they do,” mother Bonnie Pandya advised NewsNation on Friday. “They like doing this, and they’re honored to be able to go up on a long mission like this.”
However not everybody agrees. A NASA undertaking supervisor advised The Put up that the astronauts haven’t at all times been thrilled to be stranded.
“They can’t very well say, ‘Hey this sucks,’” says the NASA insider. “It’s their job and they’re doing a great job at it, but this wasn’t in their plans. There’s some natural annoyance. But they’re professionals.”
The 2 astronauts blasted off on June 5 on a Boeing Starliner capsule destined for the ISS. They had been initially anticipated to be in orbit for a few week.
However the Boeing vessel was constantly plagued with points, together with leaks that made the thrusters malfunction. After a vigorous debate with Boeing, NASA opted to have the spacecraft return unmanned in September, leaving Williams and Whitmore stranded on the ISS.
A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that’s at the moment docked on the ISS will give them a journey dwelling, as early as subsequent month.
Regardless of being in house for much longer than the week that they had initially deliberate, Williams advised NBC final November that she didn’t really feel “stranded” in orbit.
“Our mission control team and our management has always had an option for us to come home,” she stated. “So yeah, we came up here on Starliner. We’re coming back on a Dragon, but there’s always been a plan of how we would get home.”
Williams’ mom’s interview comes within the wake of Elon Musk’s claims that the astronauts had been stranded for “political reasons.”
“We are accelerating the return of the astronauts, which was postponed kind of to a ridiculous degree,” Musk stated in an interview with Fox Information, including, “they were left up there for political reasons, which is not good.”
The allegations riled up Danish astronaut and former ISS commander Andreas Mogensen.
“What a lie,” Mogensen replied on X. “And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media.”
Musk responded that Mogensen was “fully retarded” and claimed that he had supplied the Biden administration to rescue the astronauts and was turned down.
However Williams’ mom advised NewsNation that her astronaut daughter is uninterested within the back-and-forth, and needs to deal with the advantages of house exploration.
“I don’t think it should be political,” Pandya stated. “It’s just what they do. She’s doing what she loves. So how could I feel sad about it or anything? I’m happy for her.”
