After being marooned for nine months aboard the International Space Station, NASA’s Suni Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore are scheduled to splashdown off the Florida coast on Tuesday evening.
The two astronauts are joined in the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule by NASA’s Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov of Russia.
Butch Wilmore’s previous foray into space was as pilot aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in 2009. He’s a Navy veteran pilot with over 8,000 flight hours and 663 aircraft carrier landings. During Operation Desert Storm, Wilmore completed 21 combat missions.
Prior to beginning his descent to earth earlier this morning, Captain Wilmore, along with his fellow astronauts, were interview by CBS News reporter Mark Strassman.
“What is your life lesson or takeaway from these nine months in space?” asked Strassman.
“My feeling on all of this goes back to my faith,” he said. “It’s bound in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He is working out His plan and His purposes for His glory throughout all of humanity and how that plays in our lives is significant and important.”
Many have empathized with the plights of both Captain Wilmore and Captain Williams. Williams is also a retired and decorated Navy pilot. Incidentally, Captain Williams holds the distinction of having run the first marathon in space back in 2017, completing the 26.2 miles on a treadmill in four hours and 24 minutes. She had been planning to run the Boston Marathon with friends. Instead, she ran the distance in space at the same time her running partners completed it in Beantown.
When navigating outer space, timing is everything. Williams and Wilmore’s eight-day journey turned into a nine-month odyssey for a variety of reasons including helium leaks, thruster failures and scheduled spacewalks. There have been other allegations and accusations.
Captain Wilmore and his wife, Deanna, have two daughters, Daryn and Logan. Sadly, Butch has missed the majority of Logan’s senior year in high school.
Daryn, who is in college, has said, “It’s been hard if we’re completely honest.” She shared her frustration is “less the fact that he’s up there’ and ‘more the fact of why … There’s a lot of politics, there’s a lot of things that I’m not at liberty to say, and that I don’t know fully about. There’s been issues. There’s been negligence. And that’s the reason why this has just kept getting delayed. There’s just been issue after issue after issue.”
“It’s been trying at times,” acknowledged Captain Wilmore to The New York Times.
But talking with CBS yesterday, the weary astronaut was reflective and expressed confidence in God’s sovereignty.
“However that [the delay] plays out, I am content because I understand that He’s at work in all things. Some things are for the good. Go to Hebrews chapter 11, some things look to us to be not so good. But it’s all working out for His good, for those that will believe, and that’s the answer.”
Nevertheless, Captain Wilmore has chosen to see the things out of his control as part of God’s perfect plan.
For Christians, that’s always a helpful and faith-affirming perspective to hold and employ no matter our endeavor or ordeal.
Let’s continue praying for the returning astronauts and their families.
Image credit: X
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