Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
We have to dock because the situation we're in, I'm not sure we can get back to Earth. That was retired naval aviator and NASA astronaut Captain Butch Wilmore talking about being stuck in space for nearly a year after a spacecraft malfunctioned in orbit.
In this episode, we sit down in studio with Captain Wilmore to discuss his famous trip into space, what went wrong, what it was like being stranded in space, and how his experience and faith turned a near disaster into a true space odyssey. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howell. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.
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Chapter 2: What happened during the spacecraft malfunction that stranded astronauts?
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Wonderful to be with you. Thank you for the opportunity. So we covered it at the time, but you were stuck up in space for 300 days. How much, that was last year, how much longer than expected was that? It was a few months. We originally planned it was a test flight, a crew flight test, CFT mission for the first, it was the first crewed flight of the Boeing Starliner.
You know, in the history of human spaceflight, there's been six first flights, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle, the SpaceX Dragon, and then this one was the Starliner. So it was a sixth first flight of a of a crewed spacecraft, and like I said, in U.S. history, human spaceflight history.
And so it was a test flight, and we had a whole gamut of tests that we were doing on the way up, then rendezvous and dock, and then a bunch of tests while we were attached to the space station, and then a whole litany of tests on the way back before we get the deorbit burning into the atmosphere, and of course, parachutes, and then we're supposed to touch down in White Sands, New Mexico.
So that was the plan. And then day one was great. The launch, the first day of tests went wonderfully well. Day two was the issue when we ran into some some issues that we didn't expect that created the scenario where we wound up staying for those extended period of time. How long was the original plan to get there? You know, they say eight days, but it was really, it was two-ish weeks.
You know, we've heard eight was a number that was put out way before we launched, and that's kind of what the media glommed onto, and that's fine. But it was going to be two weeks or less. That was the original plan because we wanted to have a time to be attached to the space station, do some quiescent tests with the spacecraft, having never been in that environment for that long a period of time.
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Chapter 3: What was the original plan for the space mission duration?
It's never happened, but we train for that and we get in our spacecraft and we leave in specific order. We had three crewed spacecraft up at the time, the Soyuz, the SpaceX Dragon, and then us, uh, how do we, we've got a six spacecraft. And I called him and said, what are our options? What do we do? What do we plan for? And he says, well, Butch, we've never had to evacuate the station.
I'm like, yes, sir, I know that. That's really, Starliner's your only option. Because the Soyuz is too small. There's no way we can fit in it. It's very teeny. Dragon has space, but there's no system where we can plug our spacesuits into their system for the environmental control and get oxygen, all those things, communication, all that. There's no seats for us.
So the best option actually for the first two months was Starliner. In that scenario, if we had to ā and we actually did climb aboard. We had a satellite that did break up. They were concerned that the debris might come into our orbit. So we all went to our ā in the middle of the night, we all go to our spacecraft. We close the hatch. Oh, my goodness. And we did all of that.
And are we leaving or are we not? And this ā we're in the Starliner. So what kind of effects did being up there so long have on your body? So in space, without the force of gravity, you extend. And for myself, that extension, the forces on your joints go away, so really there's no joint pain. As a matter of fact, You know, in jet aircraft, we're sitting here right now.
We got one times the pull of gravity, 9.8 meters per second square, 32.2 feet per second square to the center of the earth. But in a jet aircraft, as you pull, you can increase that fill of the G-force, you know, up to whatever the aircraft will pull. And in my case, F-18 is about seven and a half times my body weight while you're fighting another aircraft and you're turning your head down.
and looking and maintaining sight and during all of that over years my neck is a mess and and even now to turn my to the right past this far hurts i can turn the left further but it's just my neck's a mess no pain in space all that went away i could turn my head no problem we touch down we splash down before they pick us up out of the water my neck is already hurting
That's how gravity, gravity is not your friend when you come back to space. And there's a process of how it comes back. So your neurovestibular semicircular canals in your inner ear, they give you balance. They've not been stimulated by gravity. As a matter of fact, when I was in space towards the end, we had a press conference and Sonny and Nick Haig spun me. I went in a ball.
They spun me like for 15 seconds as fast as you could spin. And they spun me and I came out of that and stopped. Nothing. I was just like I was normal before because my semicircular canals had gone completely dormant. It was like I hadn't even spun at all. And what does that do? Make it so you can't hear? No, no. You can still hear. It's just your balance. Oh, your balance.
They had just gone ā after 10 months almost, they'd gone dormant. But when you come back to Earth, now all of a sudden they're stimulated by gravity. Your body goes, ooh, I'm not used to this. And your whole system, your structure is not used to holding up your weight. So there's muscles that we work out. We work out every single day in space.
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