From Launch to Crisis: The Mission That Left Astronauts Stuck in Orbit

Summary

Morning Wire Podcast Summary

Episode: "From Launch to Crisis: The Mission That Left Astronauts Stuck in Orbit"

Date: March 14, 2026
Hosts: John Bickley & Georgia Howe
Guest: Captain Barry "Butch" Wilmore, NASA astronaut & retired naval aviator

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1. Episode Overview

This Morning Wire episode features an in-depth interview with Captain Butch Wilmore about his harrowing experience during the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft—a mission that, due to a serious malfunction, kept him stranded in orbit for nearly a year. The discussion covers technical challenges, emotional resilience, physical consequences, faith, and lessons learned from Wilmore's extraordinary ordeal.

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2. Key Discussion Points & Insights

A. Mission Expectations vs. Reality

• Planned Duration: The mission was supposed to last two weeks at most; original publicized duration was eight days ([04:27]).
  • “It was gonna be two weeks or less. That was the original plan...I would say two weeks would have been important.” — Wilmore ([04:27])
• Reality: Wilmore and his fellow astronaut ended up staying in orbit for roughly 300 days ([03:16]).

B. The Crisis: Loss of Thruster Control

• Malfunction Event: On the second day, the crew lost the ability to fully control the spacecraft, notably losing four (eventually five) thrusters critical for maneuvering ([05:13]-[09:34]).
• Technical Explanation:
  • Spacecraft control involves six degrees of freedom (pitch, roll, yaw, and translations in three axes).
  • With each thruster loss, fault tolerance diminished until the spacecraft could no longer be safely maneuvered.
  • The crew and ground teams worked to "bring back" thrusters by overriding fail-safe software.
• Sense of Urgency:
  • “We have to dock, because the situation we're in, I'm not sure we can get back to Earth.” — Wilmore ([05:20])
  • Docking became hazardous due to degraded control, but failing to do so would have left them with no clear path home ([06:42], [06:51]).

C. The Docking Challenge

• Manual Control: Wilmore managed the spacecraft manually for a tense hour and a half ([09:47]).
  • “From the time I came on the controls until… I gave control back… was about an hour and a half. So it was an hour and a half during this evolution… it seemed like an eternity…” — Wilmore ([09:47])
• Ground Team Coordination: Engineering teamwork on Earth was crucial for resolving the immediate crisis ([06:51]).

D. Life on the ISS—Stranded

• Immediate Response: Upon docking, Wilmore confided in fellow astronaut Matthew Dominic, preparing for worst-case scenarios, including complete communication loss ([11:20]).
  • Emergency evacuation protocols reviewed:
    • Only Starliner could possibly take them in case of ISS evacuation; Soyuz and Dragon capsules were incompatible ([11:20]-[13:57]).
  • During an actual satellite debris threat, astronauts "sheltered in place" in their respective spacecrafts—underscoring ongoing vulnerability ([13:52]).
• Indeterminate Wait:
  • Once docked, Wilmore knew that returning in Starliner was unlikely unless systems could be proven safe ([05:13]).

E. Physical Effects of Extended Space Flight

• Positive Effects:
  • Loss of gravity relieved chronic neck pain from years of flying F-18s ([14:01]).
• Negative Effects & Recovery:
  • Upon return, gravity immediately brought physical discomfort back.
  • Neurovestibular system (balance) went dormant; recovery of balance and stamina took significant time due to anemia (loss of red blood cells) ([15:34]-[16:26]).
    • “When you come back to Earth, now...your body goes, ooh, I'm not used to this...there's a significant amount of pain.” — Wilmore ([15:37])
  • Some physical issues became permanent, including persistent back pain ([16:45]).
    • “I came back and there was something in the middle of my back...never went away...has been for over 10 years now.” — Wilmore ([16:45])

F. Memoir, Meaning, and Faith

• Purpose of the Book: Wilmore started his memoir for his daughters, later published it to share a narrative of hope spanning from his youth, military, and space experiences ([17:29]-[18:33]).
  • “I think it gives a message of hope in trying times...and also...a message of hope for all eternity. It comes through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” — Wilmore ([17:33])
• Title & Access: The memoir is titled Stuck in Space; available in print, Kindle, and audio (read by Wilmore himself) ([18:40]).

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3. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We have to dock, because the situation we're in, I'm not sure we can get back to Earth.”
  — Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore, ([00:32]), ([05:20])
• “Normally...I mean, before we ever docked, we knew the chances were slim that we would be able to climb back aboard and come back if we were able to dock at all.”
  — Wilmore ([05:13])
• “You're taking a big spacecraft...traveling around the planet 17,500 miles an hour...with degraded thrusters...it would have been very difficult to dock.”
  — Wilmore ([06:51])
• "We lost the ability...to maintain six degree of freedom control. And then when we lose the fourth thruster, we've lost the ability to control at least one axes and all the other five remaining axes are degraded..."
  — Wilmore ([09:34])
• “We all went to our...in the middle of the night, we all go to our spacecraft. We closed the hatch.”
  — Wilmore ([13:52])
• “Your body in zero gravity...starts purging red blood cells. You come back from space and you're deficient...so you're anemic.”
  — Wilmore ([15:37])
• "The story continues...gives a message of hope for all eternity. It comes through Jesus Christ, our Lord."
  — Wilmore ([17:33])

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4. Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:32 — Wilmore: “We have to dock…” (opening highlight)
• 03:16 — Wilmore joins the discussion
• 04:27 — Original plan and mission context
• 05:13 – 09:34 — Crisis with thrusters and docking challenges
• 09:47 — Length and intensity of manual control episode
• 11:20 – 13:57 — Aftermath discussions and emergency protocols
• 14:01 – 16:26 — Physical effects: benefits, detriments, and recovery
• 17:29 – 18:33 — Memoir purpose and theme of hope
• 18:40 — Memoir title and availability

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5. Summary Tone

Captain Wilmore shares his story candidly, with technical clarity, humility, and a touch of humor. The conversation conveys resilience, teamwork, and faith as keys to enduring the unexpected—and transforming a near-disaster into a story of inspiration and hope.

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Recommended for:

• Space and STEM enthusiasts
• Fans of real-life adventure/ordeal stories
• Listeners seeking perspectives on resilience, faith, and crisis management

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Transcript

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

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[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

We have to dock because the situation we're in, I'm not sure we can get back to Earth.

[John Bickley]

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.

[Georgia Howe]

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.

[John Bickley]

Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

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[Georgia Howe]

Joining us in studio is Navy captain and astronaut Captain Barry Butch Wilmore. Barry, thank you so much for coming and joining us.

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

Wonderful to be with you. Thank you for the opportunity.

[Georgia Howe]

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?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

It was a few months. We originally planned it was a test flight, crew flight, test, CFT mission for the first, it was the first crewed flight of the Boeing Star. 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 the sixth first flight of a crewed spacecraft. And like I said in US History, human space flight 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 Doc, 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 burn and enter 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 test went wonderfully well. Day two was, 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.

[Georgia Howe]

So how long was the original plan to be up there?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

You know, they, you know, they say eight days, but it was really, it was 2ish weeks. You know, we've heard eight was a number that was put out way before we launched. And that's kind of what, and that's Fine. But it was gonna 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, and then, of course, climb back aboard and do all our tests coming back. So I would say two weeks would have been important.

[John Bickley]

So there was some flexibility at the beginning, which surprises me, actually, but not. You weren't prepared for months, obviously, almost a year. So a couple of weeks and turns into a month, two months, et cetera. Can you kind of walk us through what was that like for you? Did you know immediately that this was going to be much longer, or was it a continual surprise?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

That's a very, very fair, good question. The process did not, you know, go long, long, long for me. For me or Sonny. We were in the spacecraft, obviously, when we had our problems. And we will go into maybe going to the problems in a little bit. But basically, the situation we were in, we lost the ability to fully control the spacecraft. And I'm on the controls manually and doing my best to maintain control, trying to see if we could get in a process where we could dock. So the thought process was this, we have to dock, because the situation we're in, I'm not sure we can get back to Earth. We didn't know why we were losing thrusters. We dropped four thrusters, which affected our ability to fully control the spacecraft. 6 degree of freedom control. You got pitch, roll, yaw, that's attitude. And then you've got translation, fore and aft, up and down, left and right. So that's three and three, that's six degrees of freedom. And we lost the ability, it never happened before in human spaceflight, to fully control the spacecraft. And so in that scenario, we have to dock. I'm not sure we can make it back to Earth like this. I'm not sure I can control it enough to do a deorbit burn and all those things you have to do to make it back to Earth. And so the next thought beyond that was, if we dock, I'm not sure we're coming back in this spacecraft. So normally. I understand. People would think, you know, the process goes on. Are you coming back? Are you not coming back? Are you not? I mean, before we ever docked, we knew the chances were slim that we would be able to climb back aboard and come back if we were able to dock at all.

[John Bickley]

Was the docking process hazardous in the

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

situation we were in? Yes, it was.

[John Bickley]

I've seen I've seen a lot of sci fi movies, right, which makes me think they're very precarious. So it was, it was without.

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

You're taking a, you're taking a big spacecraft, the space station, the passive spacecraft is just traveling around the planet 17,500 miles an hour, five miles a second. So you're orbiting every 90 minutes. And you got the active spacecraft, which is us working to get in position to connect. Right. And so with degraded thrusters, that active connection is degraded obviously. And the situation we were in, it would have been very difficult to dock having four thrusters down. But us on board and the ground teams came up with a plan very quickly. And we were go through the process of trying to, trying to see if we could get these thrusters back because basically the thrusters don't just quit. I mean, it's the computer system, it says, okay, I'm taking analysis from all these parameters from these various thrusters as they fire. Oh, you're not performing up to standards, I'm felling you off, you're done. And then that's basically what the computer did. So to get the thrusters back, we had to send signals to the thrusters to fire them and only them. So I had to be hands off on the controls, which was not optimal because again, I'll get into that in a second. But it had to be hands off the control so it could send the signal to that thruster, a given thruster to fire. Assess how much did it fire? Enough to pull it back into the set. And then this fault detection indication response, this fitter software that pulled it out of the system, pulled it, felled it off to begin with. We had to cancel that fitter for each of those thrusters as we would bring them back. So now you're without that fail safe software to shut the thruster down in many scenarios. So we had to dock like that with those thrusters that we were able to get back. Fortunately, like I said, we were able to get thrusters back. And as it, you know, during the time we had the four thrusters down, we knew that was really our only option is to get thrusters back. And fortunately we were able to do that. And we wound up docking. We had five thrusters total to fail. Fortunately, we didn't have five failed simultaneously. Four failed, we got two back, we had two, then the fifth one failed, so we went back to three. So basically I'm kind of skipping ahead. I know, but fault tolerance is built into all systems, every system, even the thruster system, meaning we build dual fault tolerant, I'll have two failures and I can still maintain whatever this function is. So we lose the first thruster, it doesn't affect our fault tolerance. We're okay. We lose a second thruster. Now we've, we're now gone from dual fault tolerant to single fault tolerant. We lose the third thruster. Now we're zero fault tolerant to maintaining six degree of freedom control. And then when we lose the fourth thruster, we've lost the ability to control at least one axes and all the other five remaining axes are degraded because of the thrusters that we lost.

[Georgia Howe]

How long was the period of time where you and I, you were with one other astronaut in this craft? How long was the period of time where you were trying to figure this out where you didn't know how you were going to dock? Was that a period of hours, days, minutes?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

It was hours. It was initially the first thruster we lost when we, it's not impacting. Our fault tolerance occurred hours before we wound up docking. When we lost the second thruster is when I came on the controls after that and from the time I came on the controls until we finally, I gave control back to the automation system was about an hour and a half. So it was an hour and a half during this evolution and the time that we were down 6 degree of freedom control was, you know, it seemed like an eternity, but in the big scheme of things, it wasn't that long. But still the unknown. Sure.

[Georgia Howe]

And the space station is a moving target. Correct. Was this happening at, were you coordinating with them? Is there anything they can do?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

There's nothing. No. The space station? Yeah. It's fully passive. It's in an attitude. We maintain a certain attitude, and it's just orbiting the planet. It's not like moving. It's in a stationary orbit at the same altitude. It's just going around the planet. But so are we. We're going at the same speed. And as we maneuver to dock, that's the part where, you know, our speed changes a little bit, but there's orbital mechanics implications. What, what happens when two spacecraft fly in close proximity to each other? How, how they maneuver based on orbital mechanics that comes into play. So, and all of that's going through my head as we're putting these, you

[John Bickley]

know, putting these good things, not rocket surgery.

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

Right.

[John Bickley]

So you, you dock, but you already know we're going to be here for a while.

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

Right.

[John Bickley]

So what, Walk us through that, the initial conversations of it. What were you planning on from that moment? How are you prepping for what's coming?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

That's. That's a very good question. So we dock, we finally open the hatches, we do our handshakes and smiles. It's all on video, right? Welcome aboard. As soon as that was done, I pulled Matthew Dominican aside, who was already on space station, another fellow naval aviator, and we had a discussion about what had transpired. He, being a pilot type, understood exactly what was going on. As a matter of fact, we always think of the next worst failure. So when we lost, when we were down, four thrusters, I'm thinking, what if we lose a fifth thruster? Would I be able to control it all? I have no idea. We've never gone this far. We're in uncharted territory here. And I'm also thinking, what if we lose communication? Well, Matthew Dominic Pojo is his call sign. He's thinking the same thing. He's already prepared to give me some green lights through a window in the Dragon capsule that points where we could see it to say, come on aboard. If that were to happen, we didn't lose communication. But I'm already thinking, if we do, what am I going to do? And he's already thinking the same. How are we going to give them a signal that they're clear to come aboard? And so all of these things were taking place real time. We have our discussion immediately. I call the senior flight director, Vincent Lacourt, because we always train for scenarios where you have to evacuate the space station, one of many scenarios we train for. What if you lose pressure? What if a satellite breaks up and it sends debris and it impacts the station? You lose pressure. What if you have a fire, ammonia leaks. Any number of scenarios where you could have to leave the space station in an emergency, 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. How do we. We got a six spacecraft. And I called and said, what are. What are our options? What. 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 is 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 that, you know, Communication, all that. There's no seats for us. So the best option for the. Actually, for the first two months was Starliner. If in that scenario, if we had to. 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. In the middle of the night, we all go to our spacecraft. We closed the hatch.

[John Bickley]

Oh, my goodness.

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

And we did all of that. And are we leaving or are we not? And this. We're in the Starliner.

[John Bickley]

So what kind of effects did being up there so long have on your body?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

So in space, without the force of gravity, you extend, and for myself, that extension, the forces or 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 1 times the pull of gravity, 9.8 meters per second square, 32.2ft per second squared, 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, F18 is about seven and a half times my body weight. While you're fighting another aircraft and you're turning your head and looking and maintaining sight. And during all of that over years, my neck is a mess. And even now, to turn 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 and 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 Hague spun me. I went in a ball. They spun me 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.

[Georgia Howe]

And what does that do? Make it so you can't hear, or.

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

No, no, you can still hear. It's just your balance. Oh, your balance. They had just gone. 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's not used to holding up your weight. So there's muscles that we work out, we work out every single day in space, but there's small muscles throughout your structure that you can't work out well. And now they have to perform. So they get tense and your whole body gets tense and, oh, there's a significant amount of pain. Your body in zero gravity, the blood is floating in your system. So your body says, hey, you got too many red blood cells. So it starts purging red blood cells. You come back from space and you're deficient in red blood cells. So you're anemic. That's what transports the oxygen through your system. So your stamina is not what it was. And all that takes time to come back.

[Georgia Howe]

How anemic would you be when you come back?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

Well, like, let's say I go out and I work in the yard for 10 hours. No big deal. I've got about three in me when I first get back, because you just get fatigued and your body's not used to. It doesn't have enough blood cells to transfer that oxygen to keep you going. So.

[John Bickley]

So there's. You do recover. Do you fully recover?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

Well, that's a good question. You know, the second mission I had, the first long duration I had in 2014, 2015, I came back and there was something in the middle of my back on the right side that never went away. I mean, constant pain, different levels of pain depending on my exertion, but 100% of the time it was there and always has been. When I went to space, this time gone, came back. It's back and it's back now. Worse than, like right now, I'm sitting here. It's always there. I don't know what it is. They've MRI'd it, looked at it, they can't figure it out. But there's something going on back here that has stuck with me, you know, it's that thorn in my side and continues to be there and has been for over 10 years now. And that's just one of the joys of space flight you carry with you. At least I do now.

[John Bickley]

You mentioned your memoir, and I wanted to ask you about that.

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

Yeah.

[John Bickley]

What is the focus? What would readers expect with this book?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

Well, I'll tell you, the book you know, the memoir it is, that is a story of life. And it includes everything from junior high football to courting my wife, combat missions that I flew, obviously, space missions, things that I flew. And I wrote it for my daughters. I started writing for my daughters even before the starliner stuff started, because my wife and I, we had our daughters. We were in our 40s, so we'd lived a life before they were born, and so I wrote it for them. The reason I published it, though, is because the story we wrapped around the starliner narrative with kind of flashbacks to life, because I think it gives a message of hope in trying times, hope in the now. And also the story continues, and it gives a message of hope for all eternity. It comes through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And so I think it's a book of hope, and it's an intriguing story I think that people enjoy reading. I think it's an enjoyable read, but with a message that really has meaning, especially when you think about eternal hope. There's nothing better than that. Nothing more comforting, as we said earlier.

[John Bickley]

Indeed.

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

And that's why I published it.

[Georgia Howe]

All right, well, Barry, we really appreciate you coming on. And will you just remind us what the name of your book is?

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

Yes. Well, I learned when you publish a book and you go through a publisher, you don't get to pick the name. So the publisher picks Stuck in Space. And it does tell that story, and it tells truly where we stuck and we go through. And I won't let it out, but it'll say exactly what that means and why the title is that. And you can get it on butchwillmore.com, you can get it on Amazon. There's Kindle version. I actually spoke it, so you can get an audio version as well, with hearing my voice speak it. Not that that's exciting, but that option is out there. And like I said, I think people will enjoy it just reading it, but I think more so that the message will come loud and clear.

[Georgia Howe]

All right, well, thank you so much

[Captain Barry 'Butch' Wilmore]

for coming, and it's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

[John Bickley]

That was naval aviator and NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.