NASA astronaut reveals his secret to surviving 286 days stranded in space

A NASA astronaut who was stranded in space for 286 days still attended regular church services in an effort to stay connected with his faith.

Butch Wilmore was one of two astronauts rescued earlier this month from the International Space Station, where he spent nine months after the spacecraft he arrived on suffered technical problems.

Speaking alongside fellow astronaut Suni Williams in Houston on Monday, Wilmore revealed he maintained virtual contact with the Providence Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas, throughout his time in space.

'The Word of God continually infilling me, I need it,' Wilmore said

'My pastors are the finest pastors on — or off, in this case — the planet. And to tie in and to worship with my church family was vital. I mean, it's part of what makes me go.' 

Wilmore is an elder at the church, and has attended with his family for 17 years.

While in space, he led devotionals and joined others in singing Amazing Grace, he revealed.

He would also watch the service at a friend's church in Tennessee 'every single week', insisting that weekly worship whilst orbiting was 'invigorating.'  

Even if it wasn't 'fellowship up close', Wilmore said he 'still needed it' during his time away.  

Both Wilmore and Williams have been hesitant to lay the blame squarely on any one party for the blunder which saw their eight-day mission extend beyond nine months.

But SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who had a hand in their return, claimed the Biden administration declined an offer he made to bring them home months earlier. 

He and Trump both maintained the duo's ordeal was extended for 'political reasons', and when Trump returned to the White House he demanded Musk 'bring them home.'

Wilmore waded into Trump's allegations the Biden administration 'abandoned' him and his crewmate in space, saying he had 'no reason not to believe anything they say because they've earned my trust.'

'And for that, I am grateful,' he said, adding that it is 'refreshing,' 'empowering' and 'strengthening' to see national leaders taking an active role in NASA's human spaceflight program, which he described as globally significant. 

But both astronauts have repeatedly said they did not feel stranded, stuck or abandoned on the ISS, and they doubled-down on these statements during a recent Fox News interview. 

'Any of those adjectives, they're very broad in their definition,' Wilmore said. 

'So okay, in certain respects we were stuck, in certain respects maybe we were stranded, but based on how they were couching this — that we were left and forgotten and all that — we were nowhere near any of that at all. 

'We didn't get to come home the way we planned. So in one definition we're stuck. But in the big scheme of things, we weren't stuck. We were planned, trained.'

Wilmore and Williams gave a joint interview in which they admitted NASA, Boeing and even the astronauts themselves had a role to play in its unexpected outcome. 

Wilmore said that he, as the commander of crew flight test, was partly  'culpable' for not asking necessary questions for the crew launched on June 5. 

'I'll admit that to the nation. There's things that I did not ask that I should have asked. I didn't know at the time that I needed to ask them,' he added. But in hindsight, the signals, some of the signals were there.'

Wilmore also said that Boeing and NASA were to blame for the 'shortcomings in tests and shortcomings in preparations' that they all did not see.

'Everybody has a piece in this because it did not come off,' he said in the Fox News interview.

Williams and Wilmore also shared their reactions to learning that they would be in space longer than they had expected.

'My first thought was we just gotta pivot,' Williams told Fox News.

'If this was the destiny, if our spacecraft was gonna go home based on decisions made [by NASA] and we were gonna be up there until February, I was like 'okay, let's make the best of it.''

'We were ready to just jump into it and take on the tasks that were given to us,' she added.

Wilmore admitted he thought about his family the moment he heard about the extended stay.

'It's not about me,' he said. It's about what this human spaceflight program is about. It's our national goals.

'And did I think about not being there for my daughter's high school year? Of course. But compartmentalize. We've trained them to be resilient.'

Wilmore's daughter Daryn, 19, also offered an insight into her dad's return to Earth. She said while he's been 'adjusting to gravity well, he has been struggling with his muscles, joints and inner ears.

That was 'because [he's] not used to gravity or having to hold up weight,' she said in response to a comment in a TikTok video.

Research has shown that astronauts who complete long-term mission on the ISS — which usually last six months — experience muscle and bone loss as well as fluid shifts inside the inner ear due to low gravity.

While it typically only takes a few days for the inner ear to readjust to Earth's gravity, regaining physical strength can take weeks to months. 

Some former astronauts have found that it can take up to 1.5 times the length of their mission to really feel like themselves again.