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Orgo-Life the new way to the future Advertising by AdpathwayNASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore's teenage daughter Daryn Wilmore said it's "mentally exhausting" to have her dad be stuck in space since June 2024.
NASA Astronauts' Return Delayed Again! Here's Why They're Stuck in Space
Barry "Butch" Wilmore's family is definitely feeling the space between.
Butch and his fellow NASA astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams have been stranded on the International Space Station since June due to equipment issues with their Boeing Starliner spacecraft, extending what was to be an eight-day mission indefinitely.
And nearly nine months after his initial scheduled return date, his teenage daughter Daryn Wilmore is speaking out about the ordeal.
"There's a lot of things that I'm not at liberty to say, and that I don't know fully about," she began in an interview with the Daily Mail published on March 6. "But there's been issues. There's been negligence. And that's the reason why this has just kept getting delayed. There's just been issue after issue after issue."
And while Butch and Suni are projected to return back to earth this spring, Daryn understands that "things could always change."
"We've had so many changes," she continued, "and it's a bit mentally exhausting."
Daryn added, “It's been hard if we're completely honest.”
Indeed, there have been several hiccups in bringing Butch and Suni home. The two were scheduled leave the ISS in February, but their departure has since been pushed back due to a delay in launching their replacements.
Butch and Suni were also not permitted to fly back on the SpaceX Crew-8 craft—which successfully touched down in October—since all the seats were taken by astronauts who had been at the ISS since March 2024.
Still, Daryn said her father is keeping his chin up amid the delays.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
"He's just been bummed, but he's fine," she shared. "My dad is very resilient."
NASA has shared how it’s been making efforts to ensure a safe return for Butch and Suni. In fact, part of the reasons why their return has been postponed is due to safety, according to the agency's chief of astronaut office NASA administrator Bill Nelson.
“Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and most routine," he said in a December statement, after Butch and Suni's Boeing Starliner was returned to earth uncrewed. "The decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring Boeing’s Starliner home uncrewed is the result of our commitment to safety: our core value and our North Star."
MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO/AFP via Getty Images
And while President Donald Trump recently said the astronauts were "abandoned in space," Butch himself has a different outlook.
"That's been the narrative from day one: stranded, abandoned, stuck—and I get it," he told CNN in February, "but that is, again, not what our human spaceflight program is about."
He added, "We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded.”
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