For NASA astronauts, Sunny Williams, and Butch Wilmore, the long wait to return to Earth is almost over.

They went up to the International Space Station last June in a Boeing Starliner spacecraft,

and we're supposed to return about a week later.

But because of problems with the Starliner, they've stayed at the space station for over 250 days and are now set to return on a

SpaceX capsule next month. I spoke with them, along with their crewmate Nick Haig, earlier

today. Commander Williams, Captain Wilmore, and Colonel Haig, welcome to the News Hour. Thank you so

much for joining us. It's just absolutely our pleasure to be here on the PBS News Hour with you.

It's great to be able to talk about space because I know a lot of people are interested.

So thank you for taking the time.

We're so grateful for your time.

Commander Williams, when you first went up last June, let's remind folks here,

you were only supposed to be up there about a week or so.

You've now been up in space, about 250 days. You've probably heard in the conversation back here on Earth, some people saying you are stuck up there, other people saying that you were abandoned up there.

I'm just curious for your take. How do you look at it?

Do you feel stuck or abandoned?

You know, I wouldn't characterize it like that.

I think, you know, obviously there's a lot of discussion about it.

So maybe people could conceive that that's the way we are.

But we're not, we're not stuck.

We're part of a bigger process, right?

We're part of an international space station crew.

And we just happened to be the second part, the second two on the crew that came up here.

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