Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore required health checks after returning to Earth following their nine-month stay on the International Space Station (ISS)
NASA feebly played to Donald Trump’s ego with a crowing statement about his involvement in helping astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore finally return to Earth.
The agency suggested the mission was only possible with Mr Trump’s “direction” – and had the gall to state it had been completed one month before schedule. However, the astronauts had been on the International Space Station (ISS) for nine gruelling months and attempts to bring them home were aborted due to malfunctions with SpaceX technology.
They needed health checks after returning to Earth today, a journey in a SpaceX Crew Dragon which took 17 hours. The explorers splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida at 5:57pm ET (9.57pm UK time) on Tuesday evening, yet they were only supposed to be away for three weeks after embarking on the mission in June last year. A string of technical problems on the way to the ISS meant that that NASA sent the aircraft back empty as it was too risky to bring them home.
But NASA still had the audacity on Tuesday night to praise Mr Trump, stating it was always the US President’s desire to bring Sunita, 59, and Butch, 62, home.
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In a tone-deaf statement, NASA said: “We are thrilled to have Suni, Butch, Nick, and Aleksandr home after their months-long mission conducting vital science, technology demonstrations, and maintenance aboard the International Space Station.
“Per President Trump’s direction, NASA and SpaceX worked diligently to pull the schedule a month earlier. This international crew and our teams on the ground embraced the Trump Administration’s challenge of an updated, and somewhat unique, mission plan, to bring our crew home.
“Through preparation, ingenuity, and dedication, we achieve great things together for the benefit of humanity, pushing the boundaries of what is possible from low Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars.”
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Crew-9 astronauts, NASA’s Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, accompanied Sunita and Butch back to Earth. A recovery ship pulled the capsule out of the water and loaded it onto the deck. The four astronauts gradually emerged through the hatch and took their first breaths of fresh air in months.
The recovery crew helped them onto stretchers as the weight of Earth’s gravity pressed down on their frail bodies. The astronauts smiled and waved at the camera, even giving a double thumbs-up as the crew wheeled them off for a medical check alongside their colleagues.
Following that initial health assessment, they will be flown to their crew quarters at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston forseveral more days of routine health checks. Mr Trump, himself, is yet to publicly address the return of the two astronauts.
