News
By Michael Hernandez, 3-18-25
CALIRED NEWS–America rejoiced on Tuesday, March 18 after the SpaceX–an Elon Musk commercial company–rescue of astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore, 62, and Sunita “Suni” Williams, 59 stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) for 286 days instead of the 8 days they were scheduled to stay in space.
Wilmore, a Navy captain, is an elder at the Providence Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas and has spent 464 days, 8 hours, 3 minutes in space while logging 5 spacewalks lasting 31 hours and 2 minutes. Williams, a retired Navy captain and a two-time commander of the International Space Station, is a Hindu Indian American (paternal side) and Slovenian (maternal side) and has spent 608 days, 20 minutes in space and logged 9 spacewalks lasting 62 hours and 20 minutes (most by a woman).
Astronauts Wilmore and Williams had been on the International Space Station (ISS) since June 2024 and they had been scheduled to return after the launch of the Starliner capsule, Boeing’s first astronaut flight after eight days. However, that spacecraft encountered technical issues with “helium leaks” and with “the spacecraft reaction control thrusters” and NASA determined it was unsafe for astronauts to arrive back to Earth at that time.
The two stranded American astronauts and ISS commander NIck Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov splashed down on the 27-foot SpaceX Dragon–which was built with room for up to seven passengers–off the coast of Florida just before 6 p.m. EST on March 18.
Prior to their rescue, Wilmore was asked about handling the difficulty of their prolonged stay in space and responded: “I have complete faith that my Lord and Savior Jesus is at work and His purposes will be fulfilled…so I am content.”
Marcia Dunn in an AP story wrote: “Butch put in some calls to his older church members to try to give them a pep talk. He said he used his faith a lot to get him through this and that there’s a reason for everything, and that’s what he’s trying to instill in his daughters as they deal with this as well, that they persevere. This will make you stronger.”
Elon Musk, SpaceX founder, CEO and chief engineer said during a Fox interview after the astronauts return that he had offered a SpaceX recovery launch in fall prior to the elections but was denied the opportunity because of election optics of a possible rescue by Musk and Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump.
“We definitely offered to return the astronauts earlier, there’s no question about that. SpaceX could have brought the astronauts back after a few months at most and we made that offer to the Biden administration. It was rejected for political reasons and that’s just a fact.”
Jared Downing of the New York Post, reported March 18 that astronaut Wilmore said: “I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual…I believe him.”
Musk told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on March 19 that working with him to bring the astronauts back would have made Trump “look good” and that Biden “didn’t want the publicity” so close to the presidential election.
“Thanks to the excellent work of the SpaceX team working with NASA, the astronauts are now safely home. And so congratulations to the SpaceX NASA teams on excellent work,” said Musk.
Musk commenting on the dangers and possible complications of any space trip said the spacecraft needs to go 17,000 miles per hour to leave Earth and when it returns it must be able to go through temperatures that reach 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
“It is amazing that humans can do this at all. (This rescue has generated) optimism and excitement about the future of America and humanity in space. SpaceX hopes to reach Mars in 20-30 years,” said Musk.
(Editor’s Note: CaliRed News is a column posted on sustack.com focused on Making California Red by the 2026 elections through reaching Gen Z (ages 13-28), Hispanics and Christians with biblical traditional values and their pastors.)
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Michael Hernandez, is co-founder of the Citizens Journal–Ventura County’s online news service and writes for CitizensJournal.net. He is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor writer of “CaliRed News” on Substack.com and edits the weekly “Stories Speak Volumes” and monthly “Election 2026 countdown.” Mr. Hernandez mentors citizens journalists/podcasters and can be contacted at [email protected].
