President Donald Trump claimed that Joe Biden “abandoned” the Starliner crew at the International Space Station hours after the NASA astronauts were part of an exclusive interview with USA TODAY.
NASA astronauts share the work they do while living on the ISS
NASA Astronauts living on the ISS talk with USA TODAY about the experiments they conduct to help humanity hopefully travel deeper into space.
- “We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded,” Butch Wilmore said when CNN host Anderson Cooper asked him and Suni Williams about President Trump’s recent comments.
- Billionaire Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company launched the vehicle into orbit that will return the pair to Earth, also recent said the astronauts had been “stranded” by the Biden administration.
- NASA said last week that the Wilmore and Williams’ homecoming may take place sooner than expected after Crew-10 launches March 12.
The NASA astronauts who rode to the International Space Station on the ill-fated Boeing Starliner are pushing back on President Donald Trump’s claim that the two had been “abandoned” in orbit.
Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore addressed Trump’s remarks from January during a Thursday interview on CNN with host Anderson Cooper. Asked by Cooper whether they “feel you’ve been abandoned,” Wilmore replied “we don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded.”
“I understand why others may think that,” Wilmore continued before adding: “We come prepared. We come committed.”
In framing his question, Cooper specifically referred to Trump’s Jan. 28 assertion on Truth Social that former President Joe Biden had “abandoned” the two astronauts for months at the space station after they arrived in June for what was meant to be a 10-day stay. Even billionaire Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company long ago launched the vehicle into orbit that will return the pair to Earth, added on social media site X that the astronauts had been “stranded.”
Trump and Musk’s claims on Jan. 28 came hours after Williams and Wilmore joined their fellow two Americans on the space station for an exclusive interview with USA TODAY. During the conversation with Dana Taylor, co-host of USA TODAY’s flagship podcast “The Excerpt,” the astronauts, discussed life on the orbital outpost – as well as their delayed return to Earth.
Wilmore to CNN: ‘Help us change the rhetoric’
Wilmore and Williams, both experienced astronauts who are on their third venture to space, have long refuted the notion that they are “stuck” at the International Space Station.
But on Thursday, the astronauts sought to set the record straight in comments notable for contradicting a sitting president during a roughly 10-minute interview on CNN.
In their conversation with Cooper, the astronauts reinforced their experience and the training they underwent to prepare them for any number of contingencies that can occur in space travel – especially during a test flight mission.
“It was a little bit longer stay than we had expected but both of us have trained to live and work on the International Space Station,” Williams said. “I think we’ve made the most of it.”
Wilmore added a request for Cooper: “If you’ll help us change the rhetoric, help us change the narrative. Let’s change it to ‘prepared and committed.’”
“That’s what we prefer,” he added.
Astronauts reflect on lengthy stay at ISS in interview with USA TODAY
While USA TODAY’s interview was conducted before Trump and Musk’s comments, Wilmore and Williams still reflected on their unexpected lengthy stay in orbit.
“Being deployed for a little while is not unusual for any of us and that’s part of the game,” Williams told USA TODAY. “When you come to some place that’s a little bit different from home, you might not come home right away.”
Wilmore added that he and Williams had their “focus on the now, what’s taking place here” – including a bevy of science experiments, upcoming spacewalks and the necessary routine station maintenance.
“I try not to long for anything I don’t have now and just fret over it,” Wilmore told USA TODAY. “There’s no benefit to that.”
The interview with USA TODAY also took place two days before Williams made history as the woman with the most cumulative time spent on spacewalks. The historic moment came after Williams and Wilmore suited up and ventured Jan. 30 outside the International Space Station for a five-and-a-half hour spacewalk.
In the course of her nine total spacewalks, Williams has now spent a cumulative 62 hours and 6 minutes in the vacuum of space – more than any other woman in the world.
Starliner crew scheduled for March homecoming
The veteran astronauts were only due to be at the station for a matter of days before returning on the Starliner, a spacecraft intended to one day compete with SpaceX in transporting astronauts to orbit.
That was before NASA uncovered a slew of technical issues with the spacecraft, including helium leaks and propulsion issues, that prompted the space agency to opt to send the Starliner back to Earth in August without its crew.
The plan now is for Williams and Wilmore to return in March on a SpaceX Dragon capsule that arrived Sept. 29 at the space station with crew members on a mission known as Crew-9.
The Starliner astronauts are not able to return home before the Crew-9 team, astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, complete their months-long stint. The astronauts also must await the arrival of the Crew-10 mission, followed by a brief handover period before they can return.
NASA said last week that Wilmore and Williams’ homecoming may take place sooner than expected after the space agency opted to change the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule it will use to launch the Crew-10 mission. That mission is now scheduled to launch March 12, “pending mission readiness,” NASA said in a mission blog update.
Wilmore told Cooper on Thursday that, if all goes to plan, he and Williams are likely to return to Earth as early as March 19 with the Crew-9 team.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
