Sunita Williams returns: Donald Trump unaware of NASA astronauts' overtime issue, says ‘will pay from own pocket’
ByHT News Desk | Edited by Aniruddha Dhar
Mar 22, 2025 08:56 AM IST
Donald Trump suggested he might personally cover the $1,430 owed, praising Elon Musk for safely returning NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore.
President Donald Trump on Friday said he was unaware that NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore had not received overtime pay for their unexpectedly extended stay at the International Space Station (ISS). Donald Trump hinted that he might cover the overtime costs for the astronauts, who recently returned from space after staying on the ISS for nine months.
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams is helped out of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN after she, NASA astronaut Nick Hague, and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov landed in the water off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, March 19, 2025. (NASA)
NASA astronaut Sunita Williams is helped out of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft onboard the SpaceX recovery ship MEGAN after she, NASA astronaut Nick Hague, and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov landed in the water off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, March 19, 2025. (NASA)
During a press briefing at the White House, Fox News' Peter Doocy informed Donald Trump that the astronauts hadn’t received overtime pay for their extended stay at the space station, despite being entitled to $5 per day—totalling $1,430 for 286 days, The Hill reported.
Also Read |Sunita Williams' return: How much will NASA pay her for 9-month stay in space?
“Nobody ever mentioned this to me. If I have to, I will pay it out of my own pocket? OK, I will get it for them," Trump said.
“Is that all? That’s not a lot. For what they had to go through,” the US president added.
Trump then thanked SpaceX’s Elon Musk for returning the astronauts – Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore, Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. They returned to Earth early on Wednesday onboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which splashed down in the sea off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.
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For Williams and Wilmore, test pilots for Boeing’s new Starliner capsule, an eight-day mission stretched to more than nine months as a series of helium leaks and thruster failures deemed their spacecraft unsafe. The spacecraft returned without them in September last year.
“Think of, if we don’t have him (Musk). You know, there’s only so long — even though they are in the capsule up there — the body starts to deteriorate after nine or 10 months,” Trump said at the briefing.
“And, gets really bad after 14, 15 months with the bones and the blood and all of the things you have been reporting on very well. And, if we don’t have Elon, they could be up there a long time. Who else is going to get them?” Trump added.
Trump also pointed out that Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla, has been subjected to vandalism and other acts of violence, likening it to the riots of January 6, 2021.
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