'Stranded' NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore reveals who was 'to blame' for Starliner failure

We know what it's like when you're told to stay a couple of extra hours at work to lend a hand, but imagine if that ended up with your spending 286 days shackled to your desk. Worse than that, what if that was 250 miles above the Earth, knowing you'll miss birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas while floating around in a giant tin can?

This was the realization that faced Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, with the pair of NASA astronauts learning their eight-day mission to the International Space Station would be extended to a nine-month stay up there.

While both Wilmore and Williams insist they weren't stranded up in space, it became a sensationalist story with Elon Musk and President Donald Trump claiming they were abandoned up there by the Biden administration. The POTUS tasked the tech billionaire with fetching them back, and even though that was always the plan, there were attempts to fast-track the Crew-10 relief mission.

Wilmore is taking much of the blame for himself (NASA)

The pair finally returned to Earth for a watery landing alongside two Crew-9 astronauts on March 18. After being rushed off on stretchers and thrown straight into a supposedly 'brutal' 45-day regime to try and avoid the side effects of an extended stay in space, Wilmore and Williams are finally ready to tell their side of the story. In a much-hyped press conference they revealed what it was like being aboard the ISS for such an unexpected amount of time, how both are already raring to get back into space, and how Williams was craving a simple grilled cheese sandwich.

One of the big questions is who was to blame for the failure of their Boeing Crew Flight Test (Boe-CFT) mission. The official stance is that an issue with several helium leaks and Starliner's thrusters when approaching the ISS made it too dangerous to fly Wilmore and Williams back. Ultimately, the unmanned craft flew back to Earth on September 6, leaving Wilmore and Williams waiting for their rescue.

When asked who he thinks is to 'blame' for the mission failure, Wilmore admitted that even though he doesn't like the word, there are many at fault, including himself: "There were some issues, of course, that happened with Starliner, there were some issues, of course, that happened that prevented us from returning on Starliner.

"I'll start with me. There were questions that I, as the commander of the spacecraft, that I should have asked. And I did not. At the time, I didn't know I needed to. Maybe you could call that hindsight."

Wilmore continued: "But I'll start and point the finger, and I'll blame me. I could have asked some questions, and the answers to those questions could have turned the tide. So blame, it's a term, I don't like that term, but certainly there's responsibility throughout all the programs and certainly you can start with me."

He's not alone in shouldering the blame, though, adding: "Responsibility with Boeing? Yes. Responsibility with NASA? Yes. All the way up and down the chain. We're all responsible. We all own this."

We're sure others will continue pointing the finger of blame more than Wilmore, but according to Crew-9's Nick Hague, politics were never part of the conversation. Being similarly impartial to Wilmore, Hague concluded: "When we're up there operating in space, you don't feel the politics. You don't feel any of that, it's focused strictly on mission. The politics don't make it up there."