The mother of Boeing Starliner astronaut Sunita Williams, Bonnie Pandya, said she is unconcerned about her daughter’s delay in return to Earth from space. She said that both her daughter and Butch Wilmore are busy at the International Space Station and have jobs to do.
Pandya told broadcaster Newsnation host Andrew Cuomo on CUOMO in an interview that her daughter is a ‘seasoned astronaut’.
“I don’t give her any advice. She knows what to do. She is a seasoned astronaut. She’s been up for over 400 days in space,” Pandya said.
The return of Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams had already been delayed for weeks by thruster malfunctions of the Boeing spacecraft, and NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced they will return to Earth in February via a SpaceX capsule, while Starliner will return uncrewed.
“Space flight is risky even at its safest and even at its most routine,” Nelson told reporters. “A test flight, by nature, is neither safe, nor routine.”
He said the decision to keep the astronauts on the ISS and return the Starliner uncrewed “is the result of our commitment to safety,” adding, “Our core value is safety.”
“They just want to be sure that… they’re safe coming back. So that’s why they decided to keep them up there,” Pandya said.
She said she spoke to her daughter two days ago. “She told me not to worry about her. Everything’s going to be fine,” she said.
“They have things to do. They have jobs to do. They have experiments,” she further added, referring to the work Sunita and her colleague does aboard the ISS.
““I’ve been an astronaut mom for 20 years, and this is her third flight. Even though it was, you know, it has a problem, we still don’t feel that there’s a big problem,” the author of Little Tail, Big Tales: The Adventures of an Astronaut’s Dog, Gorby and His Two and Four Legged Friends, a book she wrote when her daughter stayed in space, said.
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