The only person who might know how two stranded astronauts are feeling has given his insight into how they may be feeling.
Starliner’s test pilots Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore, 61, and Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams, 58, embarked on what was supposed to be an eight-day trip to the International Space Station (ISS) on 5 June.
But when thruster and leak problems hit Boeing’s Starliner capsule after lift-off, it meant that they wouldn’t return as scheduled.
On 8 August, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, Steve Stich, said that the pair’s most likely choice could be to hop on Space X Crew-9’s return flight in February 2025, while the Starliner will be undocked and returned back to Earth by itself.
“We have been working with SpaceX to ensure they are ready to respond with Crew-9 as a contingency,” Stich said.
“We have not formally committed to this path, but we wanted to ensure we had all that flexibility in place.
“Our prime option is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner. However, we have done the requisite planning to make sure we have other options open.
“I think Butch and Suni are ready to do whatever we need them to do.”
Meanwhile, ex-NASA astronaut Scott Kelly – who’d spent almost a year on the ISS from 2015 to 2016 – reckons that the pair are doing just fine up there.
Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita Williams are currently stuck up in space (Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
“I knew them before they were astronauts and we were all test pilots in the Navy,” he told PEOPLE. “They’ll be able to handle it.”
Speaking about Williams, he added: “She is a great spirit of a person and I’m sure she’s not minding being up there for more time.
“She’s very enthusiastic about most things.”
Kelly’s career in space spanned from 1996 to 2016 when he retired – he knows exactly what it’s like to spend so long in space.
“I describe it like a large four-bedroom house but filled with a lot of stuff,” Kelly said.
“I always felt like I needed more space, not for me but an extra room for the storage situation.”
Ex-NASA astronaut Scott Kelly knows better than most how they’re probably feeling (Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)
On how to keep buys, he explained: “You have some personal stuff, you sleep there, you have some computers and things.”
However, he says the hardest thing about being up there is not to get the ‘breeze on your face’ from the natural outdoors.
“The air is kind of stale inside and it can have a bit of odor depending on where you’re at,” Kelly added.
Thankfully, the two-person crew will have plenty of food supplies if they were to stay up in space for that long.
NASA said their plan was for the two to return on a SpaceX car,
However, there could be another issue potentially facing Williams and Wilmore as NASA also revealed that the spacesuits they’d be wearing for their journey were incompatible with the other aircraft.
Featured Image Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images/MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Space, NASA
