Stranded NASA astronauts ‘grateful’ for more time in space

astronauts Butch Wilmore and syy Williams spoke today about whether they felt let down by Boeing and the Starliner after their capsule was deemed too risky to use to bring them back to Earth let down absolutely not not never entered my mind uh I don't think Sunny's either and it's a very Risky Business and things do not always turn out the way you want separation confirmed the capsule came down Earth without them last week the two test pilots will stay at the International Space Station until late February have to wait for a SpaceX capsule to bring them home then joining me now is Dan risken CTV Science and Technology expert thanks as always Dan for joining us pleasure thanks for having me what do you think of uh the comments from them any surprise I I think they're sincere and I think this is um I think what what we can look back on this as is sort of a failure to sort of control the narrative by Boeing and by NASA uh because those astronauts never spoke uh we sort of had to infer what they must be thinking and so when the narrative became oh they're trapped in space they can't come home on their spacecraft uh you know what would that be like oh gosh I've watched Gilligan's Island I can imagine be very frustrating and so you know the narrative sort of took on its own path and now NASA and Boeing are really trying to rewrite that and try to sort of claim the narrative again and I think that's going to be an uphill PR battle rocket science is not as difficult as PR and they've got the rocket science stuff figured out in fact I would argue that the Boeing mission was in in many ways a complete success they they had test the spacecraft they they precisely did that mission to find out if there were any sort of issues with that spacecraft and that's exactly what they managed to figure out they managed to identify problems that need to be worked on and then when it came to bringing them home they were not pinched into a corner where they had to take any risks and put them on a spacecraft that they were a little nervous about they were 99% sure everything would be fine or probably a number higher than that um and the spacecraft did make it back and they would have been totally fine on that ride but NASA played it safe and so there's really no no big failure here and there's no big disaster and they're not really stranded it was really just a a decision that puts these two astronauts in the place they love most for eight months instead ofh five days it's not a bad job if you can get it but is there almost too much of an emphasis on I I don't want to dist dismiss it but is there almost too much of an emphasis on safety when you're doing something as risky as this well I mean the safest thing to do with space travel is to not do it right is to stay on Earth and look at the stars and say you know someday well somebody will take a risk but that's just not that's not in the cards there there has to be a level of risk and where that needle Falls is tricky and so if you leave it to the astronauts they're going to be able to say I'm willing to take this kind of risk I'm willing to put my life on the line things like that but when you put it to the administrators and it's their job to make that decision it's a lot harder for them to justify making that kind of a call and after you know the after the Challenger disaster or or you know the other space shuttle that that ripped apart on re-entry over Tex Texas um you know people lost their lives and those were ultimately Decisions by the administration to to uh to sort of look past potential issues and failures of the entire organization to report potential issues up to the top and so they've really made a big Point since those two disasters just the Challenger that's the word I was looking for it's the Challenger disaster that that blew up um so they've they've really made a a big uh effort since then to show that they've learned from that and this was a chance to Showcase that they really do put an emphasis on sa so I think for for NASA it was success in that they said you know what we could have done it but we take the lives of our astronauts so seriously that we of course would not put them at risk and this just shows how great our culture is and so I I think it was a good PR move for them as as difficult as the whole stranded PR piece has been and uh I think it was the right call could they s could they fix the Starliner and send it back up remotely and pick them up is that a possibility I think that would be a more expensive possibility than what's already in the card so they'll come back on a SpaceX the real question is will star liner go up again and so Boeing uh man no shortage of troubles at that company um and and lots of different pieces falling off of that wagon as it rolls down the hill so uh Boeing needs to figure out what they're doing and get get things sorted but I think it's better for space travel if there are multiple companies that can provide rides to the International Space Station it's better for everybody because you have competition in the marketplace you have Innovation and you have redundancy and so uh I think a lot of people are really hoping that that that still works out and a lot of people are invested in a future that includes Starliner and honestly the issues that it had um if they're going to be able to sort those out those are engineering problems and these are rocket scientists this is what they do they're they're going to be able to work that out it's just the pr game that becomes difficult how do you convince people that it's safe how do you convince people that that's a good investment of money uh especially when the voting public has to decide who gets elected and how they allocate public funds and so um I think that's where the real question mark is all right and before we go so what are they going to do now they're up there for another five I think about months roughly you know they're going to Garden maybe play some cards uh yeah they're not it's not like being stuck at the cottage for for a few extra months this is uh this is they're going to be hard at work and they already are they've they've gotten right into the routine but actually the most interesting piece is if you're going to space for 5 days you don't really have to worry about your body I mean you're going to go up there and your body's going to be fine you're going to come back and you had a good time if you go for eight months you're going to come back you're going to be a bit of a mess and so they have to really ramp up the exercise and and I believe they've already done that but they need to be running every day they need to be doing uh all kinds of different exercises just to try to keep their bodies in shape because when you come back from space after eight months that lack of gravity just reeks havoc on so many parts of the body and people have trouble standing up uh when they get back from a trip like that so uh we'll see uh you know what that's going to be the big change to their routine is to make sure they're taking care of their bodies all right and Williams hair is absolutely magnificent in space it is it is I mean I I guess that's the benefit right is eight more months of of Beyonce hair all right Dan always a pleasure sir have a good one you too thanks a lot