By ELLYN LAPOINTE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
Published: 10:57 EDT, 31 March 2025 | Updated: 10:58 EDT, 31 March 2025
NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams have spoken out for the first time since they returned from their more than nine-month-long space mission.
The pair sat down for a joint interview with Fox News on Monday, wherein they said they do not see their mission as a failure, but that NASA, Boeing and even the astronauts themselves had a role to play in its unexpected outcome.
'They are many questions that as the commander of [the Crew Flight Test], I didn't ask. So I'm culpable,' Wilmore said.
'I'll admit that to the nation. There's things that I did not ask that I should have asked. I didn't know at the time that I needed to ask them. But in hindsight, the signals, some of the signals were there.
'Is Boeing to to blame? Are they culpable? Sure. Is NASA to blame, are they culpable? Sure. Everybody has a piece in this because it did not come off. There were some short comings in tests and short comings in preparations that we did not foresee.'
Wilmore also made a shocking admission aboutclaims that the Biden administration 'abandoned' him and his crewmate in space.
'I have no reason not to believe anything they say because they've earned my trust,' Wilmore said during a Monday Fox News interview.
'And for that, I am grateful,' he said, adding that it is 'refreshing,' 'empowering' and 'strengthening' to see national leaders taking an active role in NASA's human spaceflight program, which he described as globally significant.
This is a developing story, more updates to come.
NASA astronauts Sunita Williams (L) and Barry Wilmore (R) are finally back on Earth after being stuck on the International Space Station for more than nine months
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