NASA Crew-9 astronauts Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore and Nick Hague spoke to the press today about the future of NASA’s human space flight programme, after their recent return from the International Space Station (ISS).
Mr Wilmore said they will carefully study and rectify all the issues they have faced before going to space in another Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
To a reporter’s question to Mr 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’d blame myself. I will start with myself.”
“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,” Mr 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.”
Ms Williams agreed, pointing at the strengths of the Starliner, which is a complex spacecraft.
“The spacecraft [Starliner] is very capable, but there are things that need to be fixed as Butch mentioned. Folks are actively working on that. It’s a great spacecraft with many features that other spacecraft don’t have. It’s an honour to be a part of this,” Ms Williams said.
The NASA Crew-9 astronauts along with Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov splashed down on Earth on Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s Dragon capsule on March 18.
The White House had highlighted President Donald Trump’s role in prioritising their rescue. President Trump alleged his predecessor Joe Biden abandoned the astronauts in space. On March 7, he announced he gave permission to Mr Musk to bring back the two American astronauts.
Ms Wlliams and Mr Wilmore stayed on for nine months in the ISS after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft malfunctioned, turning a mission that was supposed to be short into a long one.