Nasa astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore said they felt “nowhere near” stranded despite being forced to spend nine months on the international space station.
Speaking to reporters for the first time since their return home, Mr Wilmore told Fox News that while “in certain respects” they were “stuck”, they weren’t “abandoned” in space.
“Based on how they were couching this? That we were left and forgotten and all? We were nowhere near any of that,” he said on Monday.
The astronauts were supposed to be on the ISS for only eight days, but were forced to stay put for months after technical problems caused their Boeing return craft to leave without them.
Speaking at a news conference, the astronauts reflected on their extended stay at the orbiting laboratory and expressed “respect and trust” for president Donald Trump and Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company sent the craft that brought them back.
“I respect you, I trust you. You have given me no reason not to trust you, either one of them,” Mr Wilmore said. “I think it’s a good thing for our nation when the national leaders, especially something that is high visibility, are involved in the process. I’m grateful for that.”
Ms Williams said she felt touched by so many people taking their journey “very seriously”. “It sets an example and it shows our ability to be able to do the hard things, put people in space, operate in space, work in space, and then bring us back. It’s important, and I appreciate that,” she said.
While the Trump administration had blamed former president Joe Biden for “abandoning” the astronauts, neither of them pointed fingers at any individual.
“I do not want to point fingers. I hope nobody wants to point fingers. We do not want to look back and say, ‘Shame, shame, shame’,” Mr Wilmore said. “We want to look forward and say, ‘Let’s make the future even more productive and better.’”
Instead, he hinted that responsibility lay with every team involved. “I’ll start with me. There were questions as a commander that I should have asked. “Responsibility with Boeing? Yes. Responsibility with Nasa? Yes. We all own this,” he said.
The astronauts said they enjoyed their time on the ISS. “You sort of get maybe a little bit tunnel-visioned,” Ms Williams said. “You do your job type of thing, right, and so you’re not really aware of what else is going on down there.”
Asked if the duo would go back to the space station in a Boeing Starliner spacecraft, Mr Wilmore immediately replied “yes”.
“I would get on in a heartbeat,” he said. “There are a couple of things that need to be fixed…but it is a great spacecraft and it has a lot of capability that other spacecraft don’t have and to see that be successful and be part of that program is an honor.”
“There are lessons learned. We’re learning from every mistake potentially and every decision made and how we can do that better next time,” Ms Williams said.
