On a video chat in early June from the International Space Station, Sunita Williams talked to a packed elementary-school gym in her Massachusetts hometown about how it feels to ride a rocket into space (like a roller coaster) and what life is like hundreds miles above the planet.
“Being in space is a lot of fun,” the 58-year-old astronaut said as her hair floated loosely in a dark halo around her head. She demonstrated a few flips, sipped tropical punch from a pouch and opened up about how people pass the time in the microgravity environment of Earth’s orbit.
“Sometimes we play hide-and-go-seek,” Williams told the enraptured students.
At the end of the call, a student asked a seemingly innocuous question: “How many days will you be in space?” For Williams, who was four days into what was meant to be an eight-day mission, the answer should have been clear. It wasn’t: “We’re not exactly sure when we’re going to come back.”
Williams and fellow astronaut and commander Barry Wilmore’s flight to the ISS was designed to demonstrate that Boeing’s long-awaited Starliner spacecraft was ready for service. Instead, it revealed flaws in the vehicle’s propulsion system, which have raised questions over whether it can safely ferry its first human crew home. Butch and Suni—as Wilmore and Williams are often called—are now stuck in limbo. Months into their time in orbit, they are at the center of a roiling debate about the risks and future of human spaceflight.
This is a hard moment for America’s renowned space program, long the envy of the world. This historic test flight for the National Aeronautics and Space Agency and Boeing was meant to inaugurate a new way to enter orbit from U.S. soil. Now the agency is mired in bad headlines and tough choices with high stakes. Should Williams and Wilmore return to Earth on Starliner when the risks of this flight remain unclear? Are they better off hitching a ride back on a flight from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a mission that isn’t happening until February? If NASA aborts this Starliner mission, what does that mean for its decadeslong relationship with Boeing and future missions to the ISS? How did NASA, for decades a symbol of American competency and technological leadership, end up in such a pickle?
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Given the weight of past tragedies, such as the 1986 Challenger shuttle explosion that killed seven crew members and the 2003 Columbia disaster that killed seven more, insiders tell The Journal that they are glad NASA is taking its time. “They will take some embarrassment over some kind of disaster,” said Roger Handberg, a University of Central Florida professor who studies space policy.
On Wednesday, NASA leaders again put off a decision for how to proceed
Williams and Wilmore are both former Navy pilots with degrees in engineering who have logged more than 10,000 hours of flight time between them. They have each flown to the ISS twice before, on space shuttles and Russian Soyuz vehicles. The Starliner flight was meant to be a capstone to their careers in orbit.
The station, which zips around Earth at 17,500 miles an hour, is familiar territory for them both, and there is plenty of food, oxygen and supplies for however long they stay, according to NASA.
To make room on the Starliner for an urgently needed pump to convert urine to potable water—to replace one that stopped working on the ISS—the duo had to leave changes of clothes behind and have relied on spare onboard garb, but they have kept their sense of humor. Days after arriving in June, Wilmore, 61, was answering questions over video from students in his home state of Tennessee with the state flag draped behind him. “I’m not the boss up here, but it doesn’t matter. I declared today was Tennessee day and Tennessee Tech day,” he joked, nodding to his alma mater, where he also played football.
The station, comprising more than a dozen modules that have been added steadily since construction began in 1998—the latest module went up in 2021—is the largest human-made object ever to orbit Earth. Conceived as an international laboratory for advancing scientific knowledge and a training ground for astronauts, it has been continuously operated and occupied since 2000 by a partnership of five space agencies representing 15 countries. Several times a year, new teams of astronauts and cosmonauts travel to the ISS, where they often stay for six months or more.
Accepted into NASA’s astronaut program in 1998, Williams was involved in expeditions that helped build the ISS during its first decade in orbit. In the close-knit world of space travelers, she is known for her infectious laughter and ease on camera.
During her last mission in 2012, Williams recorded a video tour of the ISS’s snug living quarters, including its cubicle-like sleep stations and daunting bathrooms (“You have to have pretty good aim”). It has been viewed on YouTube more than 12 million times. A relatable space nerd, she revealed her secret stash of marshmallow Fluff—“I like fluffernutters”—and presented a windowed module that affords incredible views of the 16 sunrises and sunsets the crew witnesses every 24 hours: “You can’t help but want to just come to the cupola and look outside as much as you can.”
Neither astronaut has spoken publicly since July, but their families and friends say they are doing well and in close touch over phone calls, FaceTime and email.
Williams’s mother, Bonnie Pandya, told The Journal that she hears from her daughter nearly every other day and that she sounded fine and unworried during a recent chat: “She said, ‘Whatever happens, happens,’” Pandya said.
A pastor who leads Bible studies, Wilmore credits the grace of God for his life and career—but has said the support and encouragement of his wife, Deanna, definitely helped. On a Family Life Today podcast in 2016, he recalled how when he was first rejected from the astronaut program in 1998, Deanna reassured him that “The Lord’s got something better coming!” Wilmore applied again two years later and got in.
If Wilmore stays on the ISS until February, he will miss Christmas, his 30th wedding anniversary and time with his two teenage daughters.
Still, most astronauts don’t mind some bonus time at the station, particularly if they are nearing the end of their space-traveling career. “They’re both right around 60 years old, so who knows,” said Terry Virts, a retired NASA astronaut who has spent more than 200 days in space, to The Journal. “They may not be flying a lot more space missions after this.”
Their future may be uncertain, but the space veterans aren’t complaining. “It’s a great place to be, a great place to live, a great place to work,” Wilmore said of the ISS during their last media call on July 10. Williams added that being at the station “feels like coming back home.”
End to end, the 356-foot space station is a yard shy of an American football field, but only around 14,000 cubic feet are habitable. This means the nine explorers now on the station—four American astronauts, three Russian cosmonauts and the two Starliner stowaways—are living and working in the cramped equivalent of three boxcars.
Bookended by briefings, their days are crammed with assignments ranging from spacewalks and hardware updates to food inventory and toilet maintenance. Any downtime is usually spent rehydrating or reheating meals, exercising and running experiments in perhaps the most unique laboratory of the cosmos—250 miles above Earth.
Williams and Wilmore have been keeping busy. According to NASA records and the astronauts’ report in July, they have been doing everything from servicing spacesuits to submitting to tests to better understand how microgravity affects the body. They have also been checking and testing the Starliner to make sure it can serve as a haven in an emergency, with a ready supply of oxygen, water and food.
America and Russia may be antagonists on Earth, but in space astronauts and cosmonauts enjoy a cordial, collaborative existence. NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency work closely to help run the station and launch crews to the ISS. Autonomous cargo vehicles from both countries deliver regular stores of science experiments, supplies and food, including dehydrated vegetables and candy.
Each crew member has a closet-like sleep station, which doubles as an office where they can store books and clothes. They sleep inside sleeping bags that are attached to the walls so they don’t float away.
It takes less effort to move around in microgravity, so astronauts are prone to losing bone density and muscle mass on the station. To counter these effects, they work out for hours a day on treadmills, a cycling machine and a special device called the ARED that uses vacuum cylinders to create resistance for squats and deadlifts.
Although Williams and Wilmore seem unfussed by their change in plans, overlong stays on the station aren’t without drawbacks. The Starliner astronauts packed light, so they are likely without creature comforts (no Fluff, surely, or preferred books and clothes). They also have little sense of how long they’ll be there.
“When you don’t know exactly when you’re coming back, certainly it can create stress,” retired astronaut Scott Kelly told The Journal. He admitted he had his own pangs of homesickness for Earth on his third trip to the station, during which the spacecraft felt “a little smaller every day.”
Virts said he and his ISS crew blew past their expected departure date in 2015 after a Russian cargo ship exploded on its way to the station, which required an investigation. While their delay lasted only a month, the uncertainty made the wait harder.
“I’ve been through that stress where you don’t know when this is going to end, and I just focused on, ‘All right, I got the rest of my life to be on Earth. I’m going to work hard and enjoy my time in space,’” he said. “It’s all about attitude.”
Virts said he knows some astronauts who responded to their limbo by getting depressed. “It really affected them and they were not happy,” he said.
NASA and Boeing’s current challenges are putting stress on a longstanding goal at the agency: having two different U.S. companies ferrying astronauts to and from the space station. The value of having two different sets of vehicles is simple: if one spacecraft faces a problem, another can fill in, ensuring continuous access to orbit from the U.S.
It would also reduce the agency’s reliance on a single private outfit for mission-critical operations—in this case Musk’s SpaceX. The company is a dominant NASA contractor, but Musk’s activities, such as his use of marijuana several years ago and more recent purchase of Twitter, now X, have prompted concerns at the agency about their partnership.
The U.S. has lost the ability to get to the station before. NASA completed the last flight of the space-shuttle program 13 years ago, a retirement set in motion by the Columbia shuttle disaster. Between 2011 and early 2020, NASA had to purchase seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get American astronauts to the ISS, a dependence that made both NASA and American elected officials uneasy.
To balance the agency’s cosmic ambitions and budget constraints, NASA turned to industry to create new crew vehicles, tapping SpaceX and Boeing about a decade ago to develop their Crew Dragon and Starliner vehicles, respectively.
For an agency that pioneered human space travel, the move to outsource these high-profile missions was a culture shock. “Everybody who was anybody at NASA hated the plan,” wrote Phil McAlister, a longtime NASA official, in an online post last year.
Yet the plan seemed to be working. SpaceX launched two NASA astronauts to the station in 2020, has since conducted eight more and is under contract to continue doing so through 2030.
But Boeing has struggled with Starliner. Years ago, after an uncrewed Boeing test mission with Starliner failed to reach its objectives, some leaders at NASA said they probably didn’t spend enough time looking over Boeing’s work given their long and successful relationship with the company. Hardware developed by Boeing helped NASA pull off legendary missions, from the Saturn V rockets that launched astronauts to the moon to the creation of the ISS itself.
“I think we got maybe a little too comfortable that they met our requirements,” said Steve Stich, a NASA program manager working on Starliner, in an interview earlier this year.
Now NASA and Boeing are at odds over how to handle Williams and Wilmore. The company has said that it is confident Starliner can safely return the two astronauts back to Earth. By delaying its decision, NASA is making it plain that its faith in Starliner is less secure.
This drama comes at a particularly bad time for Boeing. The manufacturing giant has just hired a new chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, to help stem its financial losses and reputational damage, particularly after a couple of fatal 737 MAX crashes in recent years and an incident in January when a door-size panel blew off a 737 midflight. The company has lost more than $1.4 billion on the Starliner program alone.
“It’s conceivable Boeing may come out of this with some black eyes,” said Roger Launius, a former NASA chief historian.
Although Williams and Wilmore witnessed up close the helium leaks and thruster problems that afflicted their maiden flight, they have remained bullish about Starliner. As operators of its first crewed mission, they have spent years working closely with Starliner’s engineers to develop the spacecraft’s hardware and software. In the July call from the space station, Wilmore sounded like a proud parent as he described Starliner’s June 6 docking performance as “truly impressive.”
The Starliner astronauts, by all accounts, are content to wait while NASA deliberates over their fate. But they also seem ready to dance again with the one who brung them. “I have a real good feeling in my heart that this spacecraft will bring us home,” Williams said last month. “No problem.”
