Stranded NASA astronauts had a surprising message in first interview since returning to Earth

Stranded NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have given their first interview since returning to Earth and they are surprisingly chill about the whole ordeal.

Wilmore and Williams first arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2024 on a flight test mission that was meant to last just eight days.

However, issues with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they had travelled there in meant the pair ended up spending nine months in space. They finally touched back down to Earth in March 2025.

The two astronauts could be forgiven for being rather annoyed about their extended stay, but in their first TV interview, they have stated they do not want to “point fingers” at anyone and don’t consider the mission a failure.

“Space flight is hard. It’s really hard,” Williams said. “I wouldn’t characterize (it) as they failed us. I would characterize it as, there was a huge team working together diligently to try to weigh all the risks of putting people in a spacecraft for the very first time with brand-new systems … and seeing how that was all going to work.”

Wilmore added: “OK, in certain respects, we were stuck. In certain respects, maybe we were stranded. But based on how they were couching this – that we were left and forgotten, and all that – we were nowhere near any of that, at all.”

He continued, saying that all parties involved, himself included, are partly culpable for things not going as planned.

“Is Boeing to ‘blame’ and culpable? Sure. Is NASA to blame? Are they culpable? Sure. Everybody has a piece in this because it did not come off,” he said.

“I don’t want to point fingers. I hope nobody wants to point fingers. We don’t want to look back and say, ‘Shame, shame, shame’. We want to look forward and say, ‘Let’s rectify what we’ve learned and let’s make the future even more productive and better’.”

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