President Donald Trump has promised to personally take care of NASA Astronauten Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore in space after their more than nine months.
During a press conference on Friday, Trump was asked about reports that the couple would not receive overtime, to which he replied: 'Nobody ever called this against me. If necessary, I will pay it out of my own pocket. '
“I'll take care of it,” he added.
Williams and Wilmore only had to spend eight days at the International Space Station (ISS) when they launched Boeing's Starliner Capsule on 5 June.
But Starliner suffered countless technical problems that eventually delayed their return to March 18. By the time the couple splashed in a SpaceX Dragon Capsule, they had registered in space for 286 days.
Wilmore's daughter Daryn, 19, had said that her father would receive a meager $ 5 extra a day, he was in space as compensation, which comes to around $ 1,380.
The payout is tackled on the annual salaries of the astronauts, which fall somewhere between $ 125,133 and $ 162,672 per year.
Former NASA -Astronaut Cady Coleman recently revealed that astronauts only receive their basic salary without overtime benefits for 'Incidentals' – a small amount that they are 'legally obliged to pay'.
President Donald Trump said he will pay Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore overtime for the extra days they have spent at the International Space Station (ISS)
“For me it was about $ 4 a day,” Coleman said the Washingtonian. Coleman received approximately $ 636 in incidental reward for her 159-day mission between 2010 and 2011.
Although it was unclear whether the $ 4 figure had since risen to adapt to inflation.
The nine-month Starliner-Saga came to the political spotlights in January, when Trump said that he told SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk to 'go' the two 'brave' astronauts who were virtually left behind 'by the Biden administration.
Musk then repeated Trump's claim in a post on X, but these statements were confused, because since August SpaceX had the task of bringing Williams and Wilmore home.
In February Musk and Trump appeared in a joint interview on Fox News, in which the technical billionaire blamed NASA's choice to extend the Starliner mission on 'political reasons', and the president added that Biden would 'leave them in space'.
Musk doubled these claims during a appearance on the podcast of Joe Rogan later that month, claiming that the Biden administration his offer to bring the stranded astronauts home earlier, refused because the Trump would have made it good.
He said Rogan that the Biden administration did not want to jeopardize the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris and deliberately “wanted to push the return date beyond the inauguration date.”
NASA did not take these claims directly, but the Trump guideline to Musk in January seemed to shift the timing of the return of the Starliner crew.
Williams (depicted here in the center) led to health problems about her 'visibly thin' appearance when she and Wilmore finally returned to earth after nine months in space
Wilmore is depicted here with what an IV seems to be in his arm
“According to the direction of President Trump, NASA and SpaceX worked diligently to draw the schedule a month earlier,” said NASA -ancanding manager Janet Petro after the Tuesday Splashdown.
“This international crew and our teams on the ground embraced the challenge of the Trump administration of an updated and somewhat unique, mission plan, to bring our crew home.”
Williams and Wilmore splash on Tuesday at 5:57 PM along the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.
Despite the challenges of long -term space flight – including muscle and bone loss, face problems and balance recordings – experts say that their nine -month -old stay is manageable in terms of health risks.
Steve Stich, manager, NASA's Commercial Crew program, said at a news conference: “The crew is doing great.”
The recurring astronauts were then loaded on stretchers, which is standard practice for astronauts who return from space after they are weakened by their time in micro -gravity.
During a press conference on Friday, President Trump said that he would pay the Starliner crew overtime 'from his own pocket'
After their first health controls, Williams and Wilmore were flown to their crews in the Johnson Space Center of NASA in Houston for a few days of routine health controls.
On Wednesday, NASA shared photos of the couple that already made a surprising recovery while walking under their own strength in normal gravity.
But Williams looked noticeably weak and both astronauts still had IV drips into her arms From receiving liquids.
The duo needs extensive physiotherapy to revise their muscles and bones, and it takes months before they return to their health status before the flight, doctors told DailyMail.com.
Based on the length of their mission, “it will probably take at least three to six months before they feel completely normal again, and probably longer for their spinal column to return to the condition before flight,” Dr. Ehsan Jazini, a spine surgeon at VSI, at Dailymail.com.
Research has shown that about a third of astronauts who spend six months in space, undergo chronic back pain, and almost half experiences acute pain after returning to earth.
This is because low gravity deterioration, straightening and extending the spine causes, as well as weakening of the abdominal and back muscles that support it.
This, together with damage to the rest of their musculoskeletal system, can considerably weaken astronauts after long-term missions.
Dr. Jazini said that their rehabilitation program probably progressive core and spinal stabilization exercises, stretching and mobility work, slow reintroduction to high impact activities and monitoring will include signs of hernia or chronic pain problems.
“The NASA medical teams are well equipped to handle this, but given the duration of their mission, a longer recovery time line must be expected,” he said.
“Just as I tell my patients, they need a lot of patience and consistency in the rehabilitation process.”
