Safely back on Earth, once-stranded US astronauts ready to fly again

by Charlotte CAUSIT

After spending more than nine months stranded in space, two American astronauts confirmed Monday that they're 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 on March 18, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams responded to the question of whether they would ride with Boeing again.

"Yes, because we're gonna rectify all the issues that we encountered. We're gonna fix it. We're gonna make it work," said Wilmore.

Williams, who co-led the test flight of the Boeing spacecraft agreed, saying "the spacecraft is really capable."

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"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 Williams.

After initial departure aboard the Starliner last June for an eight-day mission, Wilmore and Williams saw their stay on the International Space Station (ISS) extended as a result of malfunctions that were detected on the Boeing spacecraft.

The technical problems prompted NASA to entrust the return of their astronauts to Elon Musk's SpaceX, snubbing Boeing. The SpaceX spaceship returned to Earth safely March 18.

"We are all responsible" for the problems encountered during the Starliner's inaugural manned flight, 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 Joe Biden of deliberately "abandoning" the astronauts, while pledging to rescue them.

Without revisiting the political controversy, the astronauts reiterated Monday that they had been prepared for the unexpected delay in their return.

"I'm very thankful that people are paying attention," Williams said. "There's some lessons learned 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."