NASA astronauts speak out for the first time following unexpected 9-month mission to space
By Ashley Strickland and Jackie Wattles, CNN upxed 5:55 PM EDT, Mon March 31, 2025

美国国家航空航天局宇航员在经历了意想不到的9个月的太空任务后首次发表讲话


Two astronauts whose planned weeklong stay in low-Earth orbit unexpectedly turned into a more than 9-month mission due to spacecraft problems spoke publicly to reporters Monday for the first time since their return to terra firma on March 18.
NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore garnered worldwide attention when issues with their Boeing Starliner vehicle cropped up during a June test flight to the International Space Station. As they waited for an alternative ride home, the pair faced a stream of rhetoric, bolstered by politicians and media, about being “abandoned,” “stranded,” or “stuck” — descxtors the astronauts themselves have denied.
Williams, Wilmore and fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague — who were all part of the Crew-9 mission that ultimately brought the test flight team back to Earth — addressed questions about the Starliner saga during a NASA news conference.

两名宇航员原计划在地球低轨道执行为期一周的任务，却因航天器故障意外滞留太空逾9个月，于3月18日返回地球后，于本周一首次面向媒体公开讲话。
美国国家航空航天局的苏尼·威廉姆斯和布奇·威尔莫尔在六月份飞往国际空间站的试飞中，他们所乘坐的波音星际飞船突发故障，引起了全世界关注。在他们等待替代飞船返回期间，他们面临政客及媒体的一连串言论，关于他们被“抛弃”、“受困”或“滞留”的说法，但以上说法均被宇航员所否认。
威廉姆斯、威尔莫尔及最终接他们回地球的"Crew-9"任务组成员尼克·海格，他们一同在美国宇航局的新闻发布会上回答了有关星际飞船的意外遭遇。

“We were always coming back, and I think people need to know that,” Williams said. “We’re back to actually, you know, share our story with so many people, because … it’s unique, and there’s some lessons learned to it, and part of that is just resilience and being able to take a turn that was unexpected and make the best of it.”
Williams acknowledged that she and Wilmore knew going into the Starliner test mission that flying a new spacecraft was “unique,” but neither expected all of the attention their extended stay garnered. Once the duo realized they would become part of the space station crew for longer than expected, they “pivoted,” Williams said.
“We are International Space Station crew members, and we’re doing what all of our other friends in the astronaut office do: Go and work and train and and do amazing science experiments up on the International Space Station,” Williams said.

“我们终究会回来的，我认为人们应该清楚这一点，”威廉姆斯说。“而实际上，你们看到，我们回来了，我们还会跟大家分享我们的故事，因为……它是独一无二的，我们从中吸取了一些教训，其中一部分就是韧性，能够承受意想不到的转变，并充分利用它。”
威廉姆斯承认，她和威尔莫心里很清楚，参加星际飞船的测试任务，他们驾驶的是“独一无二”的新飞船，但两人未曾料到，他们的长时间停留会引起这么大的关注。威廉姆斯说，当两人意识到他们在空间站工作的时间要比预期的长时，他们就“调整了心态”。
威廉姆斯说：“我们是国际空间站的工作人员，我们做的事和其他只航天员朋友没什么区别，都是在国际空间站工作、训练、做令人惊叹的科学实验。”

Williams said she and Wilmore were honored and humbled by the amount of interest in their journey.
“When we came home, (it was) like, wow, there are a lot of people who are interested,” she said. “Very thankful, very amazed that we could hopefully be one positive element to bring people together.”
Both Williams and Wilmore said that Starliner is “very capable.” Given the chance, they would fly it again in the future, according to Wilmore.
“We’re going to rectify all the issues that we encountered,” Wilmore said. “We’re going to fix it, we’re going to make it work. Boeing’s completely committed. NASA is completely committed. And with that, I’d get on in a heartbeat.”

威廉姆斯表示，她和威尔莫尔对公众对他们太空之旅的高度关注感到既荣幸又谦卑。
他说"返回时我们真切感受到，（没想到）会有这么多人关心我们，"她说，"即感动又惊喜，希望我们的经历能成为凝聚人心的积极因素。"
威廉姆斯和威尔莫尔对星际飞船的可靠性称赞有加，威尔莫尔表示，以后如有机会，我们将再坐一次。
威尔莫尔表示："我们将彻底解决所有已发现的问题。不仅要修复故障，更要确保万无一失。波音公司已全力投入，NASA也坚定支持，有此承诺，我随时愿意再去太空。


The astronauts were repeatedly asked about any politics that came into play during their time on the station.
“When we’re up there operating in space, you don’t feel the politics,” Hague said. “You don’t feel any of that.”
During an interview with Fox News on Monday, Wilmore for the first time said he thought “in certain respects, we were stuck.”
But he continued to refute the broader narrative that he and Williams were abandoned.
“Based on how they were couching this? That we were left and forgotten and all? We were nowhere near any of that,” Wilmore said.

威廉姆斯和威尔莫尔多次受到记者追问，询问他们滞留空间站期间是否受到政治因素影响。
"在太空执行任务时，你根本感受不到政治的存在，"（一同返回的）海格强调，"那里完全没有这些干扰。"
而在周一接受福克斯新闻采访时，威尔莫尔首次松口承认"从某些方面看，我们确实被困住了"。
但他继续驳斥关于两人遭遗弃的夸大说法。
“按照他们的说法？”我们被抛弃，被遗忘了？我们离这种情况还差得远呢，”威尔莫尔说到。

President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, now one of Trump’s top advisers, have repeatedly taken credit for expediting Williams and Wilmore’s return.
Trump and Musk have also accused the Biden Administration of abandoning the astronauts in space for “political reasons,” though there is no publicly available evidence for that assertion.
Wilmore on Monday repeated earlier statements that he “believes” Musk and Trump, though he did not say about what, specifically.
“You’ve given me no reason not to trust you — either one of them,” Wilmore told Fox News when asked what he would say to Trump and Musk. “I am grateful that our national leaders actually are coming in and taking part in our human spaceflight program.”

美国总统特朗普及其首席顾问、SpaceX首席执行官埃隆·马斯克多次宣称是他们"促成"了威廉姆斯和威尔莫尔的回归。特朗普和马斯克还指责拜登政府出于“政治原因”将宇航员遗弃在太空中，但该说法迄今未获任何公开证据支持。
威尔莫尔周一在接受福克斯新闻采访时，反复表示"信任"马斯克和特朗普，但未具体说明信任的是什么。
"你们从未给我质疑的理由，"当被问及想对二人说什么时，威尔莫尔表示，"感谢国家领导人真正参与载人航天事业。”
当被问及会对特朗普和马斯克说些什么时，威尔莫尔向福克斯新闻说道：“你们从未给我质疑的理由，感谢国家领导人真正参与载人航天事业。

Astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore talk to reporters during a news conference at Johnson Space Center on March 31 in Houston.
Astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore talk to reporters during a news conference at Johnson Space Center on March 31 in Houston.

尼克·黑格、苏尼·威廉姆斯和布奇·威尔莫在约翰逊航天中心的新闻发布会上与记者见面

Reacclimating to life on Earth
Williams and Wilmore were reassigned to the Crew-9 mission during their monthslong stay on the orbiting laboratory, integrating with space station staff. As their stay faced further extensions, the astronauts acknowledged it was difficult to be away from family and friends on Earth.
“Did I think about not being there for my daughter’s high school year? Of course, but (we) compartmentalize. … I can’t let that interfere with what I’m called to do at the moment,” Wilmore told Fox News. “It’s not about me, it’s not about my feelings. It’s about what this human spaceflight program is about: It’s our national goals.”
Despite the controversial rhetoric about the mission, the astronaut duo also relished the time spent in space.
“It’s fantastic up here. I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend time up here with these views and with this company?” Williams told CNN’s Anderson Cooper from the space station in February.
Hague on Monday praised Wilmore and Williams as highly skilled astronauts who were welcomed as they helped the current station crew work through experiments and other tasks — more than “gap fillers on the station,” he said at the news conference.

重新适应地球生活
威廉姆斯和威尔莫尔在空间站滞留几个月后，被重新分配到Crew-9任务中，与空间站其他宇航员一起工作。随着他们的停留时间进一步延长，他们承认远离地球亲人并不轻松。
“是否对错过女儿高中毕业季感到遗憾？当然，但（我们）能分得清。我不能让这件事影响到我目前的工作，”威尔莫在接受福克斯新闻采访时表示。“这无关个人情感。这是关于人类太空飞行计划的意义：这是我们的国家目标。”
尽管任务期间争议不断，两位宇航员仍珍视他们的这段太空时光。
“这里（太空）太美了。我的意思是，谁不想来这里一边欣赏景色一边与同伴工作呢？”今年2月，威廉姆斯曾在空间站对CNN的安德森·库珀说道。
周一的记者见面会上，海格盛赞威廉姆斯和威尔莫尔这两位同事，海格表示："他们绝非简单的'空间站补位人员'，而是协助现役乘组完成大量实验的核心成员——威廉姆斯甚至还当上空间站指令长。"

“They were productive, pushing the station mission forward and Suni was the station commander, so she was calling the shots,” Hague said. “So you get in that environment, that operational environment, the politics, they don’t make it up there. We are working as a part of an international team that spans the globe … and we just figure out how to make it happen. That’s the magic of human spaceflight, is that we can focus on something so positive that pulls people together. And we’ve been doing that for a long time.”
After returning home, Williams said she couldn’t wait to hug her husband and her dogs. She said she’s been feeling good and went for a 3-mile run yesterday — something she says is a testament to the astronauts’ trainers, who are “rocking it” in helping the crew reacclimate to life on Earth again.
“I mean, who would even imagine that you come back from roughly 10 months (in space) and within a week, you run 2 miles at an eight-minute pace,” Wilmore said. “I mean, that’s not even conceivable that the body could handle that. But these folks get us ready to where those type of things happen.”

海格在评价两位同事时表示："他们贡献巨大，不仅推动空间站任务进展，威廉姆斯更是承担了空间站指令长重任。“那种环境中，政治因素毫无生存土壤。我们是一个国际团队，我们只在专注共同去实现目标。这就是人类太空飞行的神奇之处，我们可以专注于一些积极的事情，让它把人们凝聚在一起。这也是我们一惯秉持的理念。"
返回地球后的威廉姆斯迫不及待拥抱丈夫和爱犬。并表示感觉良好，更在回家的次日还完成了3英里跑步——她将此归功于"表现出色"的宇航员训练团队，正是他们的专业指导帮助乘组快速适应地球生活。
威尔莫尔表示"试想，谁还能在太空驻留近10个月后，还在一周内以8分钟配速跑完2英里，"威尔莫尔感叹道，"一般人根本无法实现。是他们（康复团队）让我们创造出这样的奇迹。"