Closing Bell - Manifest Space: “Stranded” NASA Astronauts Return to Earth with Butch Wilmore & Sunita Williams 3/31/25

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

After an eight day spaceflight turned into a 286-day space odyssey, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are back on Earth. The “stranded” NASA astronauts flew home in a SpaceX Dragon capsule, instead of the Boeing Starliner which carried them to the I.S.S. last June. Williams and Wilmore join Morgan Brennan to discuss the return to Earth, Boeing Starliner and the future of human spaceflight.

An eight-day spaceflight that turned into a 286-day space odyssey. The quote-unquote stranded NASA astronauts, Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore, speaking publicly today after they returned to Earth on March 18th when they splashed down off the Florida coast in a SpaceX Dragon capsule. A different capsule owned by a different company than the one that carried them to the International Space Station last June. Human spaceflight is hard. Taking people into spacecraft, taking them to a place they're going to rendezvous and then go work and then bring them back home, that's difficult. And we were part of this whole process. It's not just about Sunny and Butch in a spacecraft.

It's also about our obligations to our international partners on the International Space Station doing that work. And so like we all have mentioned, we're happy to be part of that and flow right into the natural flow of crew rotations. And that happened to be with crew nine. Wilmore and Williams traveled to the ISS in the Starliner capsule, the first people ever to fly Boeing's new spacecraft.

But the Boeing crew flight test did not go according to plan, and technical issues triggered a decision by NASA to bring that capsule home empty. Wilmore and Williams were absorbed into NASA's Crew-9 astronaut mission, and along the way, over nine months, talk surfaced of them being, quote, stranded, stuck, abandoned, and the decision to keep them there for so long, one even rooted in politics. If you want to start with pointing a finger, you can point it at me. Because I'm the commander of the spacecraft, I did not ask certain questions about certain systems, going way back years even, questions that could have maybe turned the tide and stemmed the tide. I didn't ask those questions.

I didn't really think about needing to ask some of those questions, but in hindsight, I should have. So I bear part of the blame, if you want to call it blame, or the responsibility. NASA bears part of the responsibility. Boeing bears part of the responsibility. Williams tallied 608 cumulative days in space, the second most for any U.S. astronaut. Together with Colonel Nick Hague of the U.S. Space Force, the Crew-9 team conducted over 900 hours of research on their mission. On this episode, Wilmore, Williams and Haig on Crew-9. I'm Morgan Brennan and this is Manifest Space. Joining me now NASA's Crew-9, Butch Wilmore, Sonny Williams and Nick Haig. It is an honor and a privilege to speak with you now that you're back here on Earth.

So welcome back. Appreciate the time. And Sonny and Butch, I'm going to start with you. First thing you did or ate or wanted to experience when you got back on dry land after you splashed down. All right, I'll start. I, of course, had to hug my husband and get a little bit mauled by my dogs, who I hadn't seen for a little while, and had a grilled cheese sandwich because it's just one of those

things my family did since I was a little kid. Of course, I got to get my wife, my two daughters, Darren and Logan, and made a basil soup. Went down easy. Love it. 286 days for the two of you versus what was supposed to be an eight-day spaceflight. How do you prepare yourself for what ultimately ended up being such a starkly different outcome? Well, I think there's preparation in several areas. Professionally, we went prepared planning for our mission, our test flight mission, testing on the way up a couple days on space station,

test, adapt, dock to the space station for Starliner, and then test on the way down. That was our plan. But we prepared for as many contingencies as we thought might be possible because human space flight is not easy, it's tough, and there's any number of things that could have changed our mission, our mission time frame. So we went up completely qualified to do all maintenance, all experiments, spacewalks, robotic arm ops, everything. We trained for years to make sure we were prepared to do whatever. I'll let Sunny talk about the preparation from the other standpoint.

So it is interesting that, you know, there is an army of people down here who are looking at all the data and everything that happened. And as the summer progressed on, you know, we have to trust their decision-making processes and what they know in the analysis that they've seen, the testing that they've seen here on the ground. And so it sort of allowed us to sort of gently get into the idea that we might be staying there a little bit longer than we had originally prepared.

And you know, like Butch has mentioned, we came prepared, so we are ready to jump in and help out as much as we can with Crew 8 while we're up there over the summer. And when the determination was made that Nick and Alex were going to come up with Crew 9 and rejoin them, we just totally pivoted and went into like, okay, we're ISS crew members, and, you know, we just took on the duties and the responsibilities

that we had while we were up there. So, you know, it's just a change in your perspective. All of us have flown long duration on the International Space Station before. We know what it's like. Just really actually impressed by what's going on up there, all the science and stuff and honored to be part of it. I think, what did I see?

900 experiments that were conducted as part of Crew-9, Nick? Yeah, so there's been almost 4,000 experiments in the lifetime of the space station and that mission has been going on for two and a half decades. And so it's a thrill to play our small part in it and spend our expedition time up there and then pass the baton on to crew 10

and watch expedition 72 wrap up and Expedition 73 kick off. Okay, so quote unquote stranded, quote unquote stuck, abandoned. Political reasons have even been floated as a possibility for the duration of this stay for the two of you, for Sonny and Butch. How do you see what happened and why? You know, that rhetoric. We understand it.

We understand why those that are not in the know of all that takes place in human spaceflight might consider that. We didn't look at it like that at all, and we're focused on the mission, mission, mission, mission. That's what we do. And as the mission changes, like Sunny said,

we pivot to that next phase, that next opportunity, that next task, and we just took it day by day by day by day. And we didn't focus on the fact that what was taking place as far as the rhetoric, the narrative that was taking place on earth, we didn't hear a lot about it, to be honest with you. And when we did hear it,

we didn't concern ourselves with it because we knew we came prepared for the mission and the normal cycle of bringing crews up and bringing crews down, we knew that we would slide into that and it's eventually what it was. Yeah, you know, Butch has mentioned before, it's this, you know, human spaceflight is hard, taking people into spacecraft, taking them to a place they're going to rendezvous and then go work and then bring them back home. That's difficult. And, you know, we just, we were part of this whole process. It's not just about Sonny and Butch in a spacecraft.

It's also about our obligations to our international partners on the International Space Station doing that work. And so, like we all have mentioned, we're happy to be part of that and flow right into the natural flow of crew rotations and that happened to be with Crew 9. It wasn't just any spacecraft though. It was the Starliner spacecraft.

You were the first people to fly in Boeing's new capsule. It did not go according to plan. Did Boeing let you down? Did Boeing let us down? Well, that's a good question. I will tell you who let us down. Nobody let us down. If you wanna start with pointing a finger,

you can point it at me. Because I'm the commander of the spacecraft, I did not ask certain questions about certain systems going way back, years even, questions that could have maybe turned the tide and stemmed the tide. I didn't ask those questions. I didn't really think about needing to ask some of those questions, but in hindsight, I should have. So I bear part of the blame, if you want to call it blame, the responsibility.

NASA bears part of the responsibility. Boeing bears part of the blame if you want to call it blame or the responsibility NASA bears part of the responsibility Boeing bears were part of the responsibility and those entities all these entities are coming together to affect Change to make sure that the systems and the processes that took place then that resulted in in the outcome that we had is Stem that tide and make sure that the future is different. We're gonna take these lessons learned we're gonna incorporate them to the processes going forward and those processes and those systems and those spacecraft and those programs will be different and better

because of what has transpired here because that's what we do. This is a tough business as we said, and taking those lessons learned is normal process that we do. This was highly visible,, as we said, and taking those lessons learned is normal process that we do. This was highly visible. There's been many others in the past as well where we learn from it

and we make things better going forward. You mentioned in the press conference that you're gonna be meeting with Boeing executives later this week. What is your message to them? And as the two people who have both on and off earth actually flown this capsule, what do you think happens to the Starliner piece

of the NASA Commercial Crew Program? So we're excited to actually talk to them and give them our perspective, as well as hear what's been going on, because we've been a little bit focused on things that have been going on in space for the last couple months. And so I'm really anxious to hear what they've done and what information they've gained

and what tests that they've completed. And then add our two cents, our perspective, which obviously nobody else has had from the spacecraft, and see how that marries up and see how we're going to move forward to get the spacecraft flying again with cargo and then with people. So it's a super capable spacecraft. We mentioned that during the press conference. Really love to be part of the process to get it going and see it fly again. Now I've been told I have to wrap this up

and I have a million more questions for you, but I'm just going to ask you one more and that is where do you think, how do you think human spaceflight evolves from here? Because we've already got, you know, crew 10 on the International Space Station, but even as soon as tonight you have SpaceX launching another private mission, FRAM2, as well. So what do you think about this intersection between private sector and public sector when it comes to this new space economy? It is extremely exciting. There are so many opportunities that are we're right at the doorstep of Opening up whole new areas for these different sectors and to see the overlapping interest in those It's it's it's just you know, it's a great time to be part of human spaceflight

You know when we think when we come back and we think about what is the next thing that we're going to get involved in It's pretty exciting to know well, you know that could be a lunar lander or a rover or a new spacesuit or a commercial, you know, Leo destination commercial station. There's all these opportunities that are out there now that that weren't necessarily there a decade ago and so this is a really great time to be involved in the exploration of space and human spaceflight. Thank you so much for the time. It's wonderful to speak to all three of you of Crew 9. Butch Wilmore, Sonny Williams, and Nick Haig, thank you. Thank you, Morgan.

You're welcome. That does it for this episode of Manifest Space. Make sure you never miss a launch by following us wherever you get your podcasts and by watching our coverage on Closing Bell Overtime. I'm Morgan Brennan.