By Nina Huang
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
NASA astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams made history as she piloted the Boeing Starliner capsule on its inaugural crewed test flight. She is the first woman and Asian American to pilot a spacecraft test flight.
Williams and her crewmate, Barry “Butch” E. Wilmore, are part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program that is working with the American aerospace industry through a public-private partnership to launch astronauts on American rockets and spacecraft from American soil. The goal of the program is to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation on space station missions, which will allow for additional research time.
Williams and Wilmore lifted off at 10:52 a.m. EDT on June 6 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on an end-to-end test of the Starliner system.
From the International Space Station (ISS), they recently participated in a live Q&A hosted by the White House and moderated by Chirag Parikh, Deputy Assistant to President Joe Biden and Executive Secretary of the National Space Council.
The astronauts were both honored to be a part of the historic, first-ever crewed test flight aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
Parikh shared that only 10 Americans before Williams and Wilmore have ever done it, further exemplifying their bravery and deepening America’s leadership in space exploration.
“As a girl dad of a 3-year-old toddler, it’s awesome to know she is going to grow up in a world with someone like Suni as a role model. Thank you so much for what you’re doing,” Parikh expressed.
“It’s an honor to share this opportunity. Time and again, we’ve met different challenges and have met those challenges with a path to success. Here we float at the ISS together having accomplished a large part of the mission to launch. It’s special,” Wilmore said.
Williams echoed Wilmore’s words reiterating how big of an honor it is to be able to have the opportunity.
“We’ve worked really hard with NASA and Boeing counterparts. It was an amazing ride up here and just in general, putting humans in space—it’s a miracle. Humans orbiting the planet is a miracle. It takes a million pieces and parts to make that happen. It’s pretty amazing and I’m just honored and lucky to be here as part of a little piece of a cog in the wheel to make it possible,” Williams said.
A viewer asked, “How does it feel being the first Asian and woman to fly on a test flight? What would you say to a younger Asian American and those younger at heart who look up to you?”
“There are qualifications for the jobs. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you came from, or ethnicity or religion, if you can do the job, then you can do the job. I challenge people to do the job. If you can do it, why don’t you? I don’t think I could be here if Butch and the team didn’t think I was good enough to be here. I just want to do the job, I think anyone who’s committed and ready to go, and can do the same thing,” Williams said.
“It is a unique position she’s in—I’m honored to also share this with her. When we sit in that capsule side by side… where we come from and what we look like, none of that matters. All that matters is knowing the spacecraft in an integrated fashion to deal with any and all contingencies, the mission control operates the spacecraft, they support us in flying it, the person sitting in the left and right seats have to be capable. It is a unique position and I’m grateful to share that with Suni. She’s the person to be in that seat and I’m honored to be there with her,” Wilmore shared.
“We are blessed and lucky to be in the U.S. where we have the opportunities to be given to everybody. It’s not the same everywhere else and it doesn’t matter where you’re from. In our country, the opportunities are out there, you can take them if you want them,” Williams said.
“It’s in our pledge of allegiance—one nation under God, indivisible,” Wilmore added.
Another question came in for Wilmore: “What do you enjoy most about your time in space? And what age were you inspired to be an astronaut?”
Wilmore said that he can’t recall what age, but that the fire and desire had always been there since day one. He remembered watching his little black and white television during the Apollo era.
“It’s the job, it’s taking a problem and being a part of the big team that solves it. Space flight is wrought with issues you have to deal with. Anything that’s hard is worth doing and anything worth doing is probably hard to do,” he said of human space flight.
He added that because human space flight deals with a lot of issues due to humans being an important commodity, the challenges of coming up with plans to address failure drive him and give him the excitement and thrill.
Another viewer asked Williams to share insights or experiences from her space missions that influenced her perspective of living back on Earth.
Williams shared a memory from her first mission where her commander called for her to go upstairs. She literally flew up the stairs and realized she didn’t have to walk up the stairs. Also, she saw Earth outside the spacecraft window and she had a flashback moment to elementary school remembering how they taught her that the Earth is round. But centuries ago, people didn’t have the opportunity to see for themselves, so Williams shared how amazing it is, and makes you think what the human brain can actually do if you use it in a proper way.
“It’s just our planet, that’s all we have. We have one planet that we know of as human beings where we all live. It’s a little crazy that we don’t all get along. This is our spaceship in the universe and we really ought to get along. It made me want to see places and talk to people about how we should preserve our one Earth,” Williams shared.
“We hope you’re able to convey that to people around the world. In space, there are no political boundaries, it’s just planet Earth,” Parikh said to both astronauts.
The final question was asking about how one’s body feels after a mission and once you’re adjusted.
Wilmore said that when you’ve been in space for a little bit, gravity is not your friend, but you adjust. It takes a bit of time to adjust back to gravity and it’s different for different people—sometimes it takes a couple of hours and for others, it takes a couple of days. Space is a great place to visit, but there’s no better place than on Earth.
“Earth is where family is, Earth is where we build to get to other places,” Wilmore added.
She added that they go through rehabilitation and use special devices to do exercises, like squats and deadlifts, to get them used to walking on Earth again.
“We were born on Earth, formed on Earth, and our bodies are about gravity. Being able to come up here and live in space takes adaptation. Likewise, human bodies can adapt, but going back to Earth is a little tough, you can’t escape gravity,” Williams added.
“Life on Earth is really the best thing ever. We’ll be happy to go back home when it’s time to go back home,” Williams said.
For more information about the program, visit https://www.nasa.gov/mission/boeing-crewflighttest.
Nina can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.