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NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spoke about their continued stay aboard the International Space Station during a press conference<\/a> held yesterday. The two are now fully incorporated into the ISS crew, as the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that was meant to take them home last week was instead sent back to Earth uncrewed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Early on, the two were asked if they felt \u201clet down\u201d by Boeing. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d said Wilmore:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis operation is not easy. NASA does a great job \u2014 the people at Nasa do a great job \u2014 of making a lot of things look easy. Sending probes beyond the edge of our solar system; going in [and] getting samples from asteroids; humans in space. It\u2019s a very risky business and things do not always turn out the way you want.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n NASA decided not to fly the craft back with the two aboard after finding thruster issues and helium leaks in Starliner. But Wilmore said that with more time, \u201cwe could have gotten to the point, I believe, where we could have returned on Starliner. But we just simply ran out of time.\u201d Instead, the two have become part of the ISS crew.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Williams, who Wilmore said will become the Commander of the ISS soon, said the transition to the space station\u2019s crew was \u201cnot that hard,\u201d as she and Wilmore had been preparing to go to the station for years prior to their flight earlier this year. She said their later return in a SpaceX Dragon capsule at the conclusion of NASA\u2019s Crew-9 mission is a unique opportunity for the two test pilots, adding, \u201cWe\u2019re excited to fly in two different spacecraft; I mean, we\u2019re testers, that\u2019s what we do.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Neither astronaut expressed dismay at being aboard ISS longer. \u201cSpace is my happy place,\u201d Williams said, \u201d…every day you do something that\u2019s \u2018work\u2019 \u2014 you can do it upside down, you can do it sideways, so it adds a little different perspective.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n