Safely back on Earth, once-stranded US astronauts ready to fly again
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Astronauts Sunita ”Suni” Williams and Barry ”Butch” Wilmore speaking at a news conference at the Nasa Johnson Space Centre on March 31.
PHOTO: AFP
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HOUSTON - After spending more than nine months stranded in space, two American astronauts confirmed on March 31 that they are ready to blast off again aboard a Boeing Starliner, the very spacecraft that could not return them to Earth.
In their first Nasa press conference since their long-awaited splashdown
“Yes, because we’re gonna rectify all the issues that we encountered. We’re gonna fix it. We’re gonna make it work,” said Mr Wilmore.
Ms Williams, who co-led the test flight of the Boeing spacecraft, agreed, saying “the spacecraft is really capable”.
“There were a couple things that need to be fixed, like Butch mentioned, and folks are actively working on that, but it’s, it is a great spacecraft, and it has a lot of capability that other spacecraft don’t have,” said Ms Williams.
After initial departure aboard the Starliner in June for an eight-day mission, Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams saw their stay on the International Space Station (ISS) extended as a result of malfunctions
The technical problems prompted Nasa to entrust the return of their astronauts to Mr Elon Musk’s SpaceX
“We are all responsible” for the problems encountered during the Starliner’s inaugural manned flight, Mr Wilmore insisted, saying he prefers to look forward.
While the stranded astronauts earned a great deal of public interest, the incident also drew political attention, with US President Donald Trump accusing his predecessor Mr Joe Biden of deliberately “abandoning” the astronauts, while pledging to rescue them.
Without revisiting the political controversy, the astronauts reiterated on March 31 that they had been prepared for the unexpected delay in their return.
“I’m very thankful that people are paying attention,” Ms Williams said. “There are some lessons learnt to it, and part of that is just resilience and being able to take a turn that was unexpected and make the best of it.” AFP
