Stranded Starliner astronaut Sunita Williams mom reveals why daughter is honored to be on the ISS for so long

Stranded Boeing Starliner astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore have been stuck in space for 264 days — on a trip that should have lasted about a week — but Williams’ mom says that the snafu was an honor and that her daughter is happy aboard the International Space Station.“It’s what they do,” mom Bonnie Pandya told NewsNation on Friday.“They like doing this, and they’re honored to be able to go up on a long mission like this.”But not everyone agrees.

A NASA project manager told The Post that the astronauts haven’t always been thrilled to be stranded.“They can’t very well say, ‘Hey this sucks,'” says the NASA insider.“It’s their job and they’re doing a great job at it, but this wasn’t in their plans.

There’s some natural annoyance.But they’re professionals.”The two astronauts blasted off on June 5 on a Boeing Starliner capsule destined for the ISS.

They were initially expected to be in orbit for about a week.But the Boeing vessel was continuously plagued with issues, including leaks that made the thrusters malfunction.After a vigorous debate with Boeing, NASA opted to have the spacecraft return unmanned in September, leaving Williams and Whitmore stranded on the ISS.A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that is currently docked at the ISS will give them a ride home, as early as next month.Despite being in space much longer than the week they had initially planned, Williams told NBC last November that she didn’t feel “stranded” in orbit.“Our mission control team and our management has always had an option for us to come home,” she said.

“So yeah, we came up here on Starliner.We’re coming back on a Dragon, but there’s always been a plan of how we would get home.”Williams’ mother’s interview comes in the wake of Elon Musk’s claims that the astronauts were stranded for “political reasons.” “We are accelerating the return of the astronauts, which was postponed kind of to a ridiculous ...