‘Ran out of time’: Stranded US astronaut says troubled Starliner could have carried him home

A stranded US astronaut stuck in space said he believed Boeing’s troubled Starliner could have carried him home.

A US astronaut stuck on the International Space Station said he believed Boeing’s Starliner could have carried him home if more time had been available to work through the beleaguered spacecraft’s issues.

Last week, Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams watched the Boeing Starliner they rode to the ISS three months prior head back to Earth without them.

“We could have gotten to the point, I believe, where we could have returned on Starliner, but we just simply ran out of time,” Wilmore said Friday in a video press conference.

The two veteran astronauts took off aboard the Starliner as part of the vessel’s first crewed mission on June 5, in what was originally meant to be eight days in orbit.

But the Starliner ran into several technical issues, with their pair now expected to spend eight months in space.

Wilmore said he believed the pair could have retuned on the Starliner but they ran out of time. Picture: NASA TV/AFP

Last month, NASA confirmed Williams and Wilmore will return to Earth in February with the Crew-9 flight of Boeing’s aerospace rival SpaceX.

Though Wilmore said he was “absolutely not” let down by the decision to stay in space, he indicated there were “disagreements” about how to handle the return.

“In this case, we found some things that we just could not get comfortable with putting us back in the Starliner when we had other options,” Wilmore said.

Williams said she was “so happy” Starliner landed on Earth without issues, even if they were not on it.

“We wanted to take Starliner to the completion and land back on land at home, but you know, you have to turn the page and look at the next opportunity,” she said.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft launched NASA's Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station. Picture: NASA

Wilmore and Williams took off to space in June. Picture: NASA/ AFP

Both astronauts said the support they have received has helped them transition to the new return timeline.

“I can sum it up in one word, and that’s resiliency,” Wilmore said. “We are tasked – and we learn, and we train – to handle all types of situations.”

Astronauts to vote in US election from space
Despite being stuck in space until February, the pair confirmed they still plan to vote in the upcoming US election.

When asked by a reporter about the November election, Wilmore said he sent down a request for a ballot earlier on Friday.

“It’s a very important role that we play as citizen, including those elections, and NASA makes it very easy for us to do that,” he said.

The astronauts have requested ballots to vote in the US election. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

Williams agreed, adding: “It’s a very important duty that we have as citizens and looking forward to being able to vote from space, which is pretty cool.”

Texas election officials are working with NASA to send astronauts a password-protected PDF with clickable boxes to cast their votes.

“Once they vote on their live ballot, it is returned, printed, and processed with other ballots,” Rosio Torres-Segura, a spokesperson for the county clerk told NBC News.

The pair won’t be the first to vote in space either.

Astronaut David Wolf became the American to vote from space on the Mir Space Station in 1997. Two decades later, US astronaut Kate Rubins voted from the International Space Station in the 2020 election.