Bethany Stevens, a NASA spokeswoman, has come out and acknowledged that it was because of President Trump’s assistance that two astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, were returned safely to Earth after spending several months essentially trapped on the International Space Station (ISS).
In an interview with Fox News Stevens said that the rescue was a “huge win for the Trump administration” and that this success is just a start as the Trump nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, looks forward to “Mars and beyond.”
“This is a huge win for the Trump administration. And it would not have happened without President Trump’s intervention. Up next on the docket, to continue implementing President Trump’s ambitious space agenda that he touted in his inaugural address is to confirm his nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman,” Stevens said.
She described Isaacman as a humanitarian and an outsider and noted that he “was the very first civilian to do a human spacewalk.”
“President Trump was also once considered an outsider, and the American people have put him back into office, just showing how much they appreciate the business side that he brings to the table. And Mr. Isaacman also has a background as an entrepreneur of an extremely successful business,” Stevens said. “I believe that he is well-suited, as do 30 astronauts who wrote in support of him and multiple GOP governors, that he is well suited to take the helm here at NASA and to implement the president’s agenda.”
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Splashing success
On March 18, the two astronauts, who were supposed to return to Earth on Sept. 3 last year but became stranded after the Boeing spacecraft they were intended to return on experienced significant technical issues, splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, in Elon Musk’s Dragon spacecraft.
While the two were in good spirits and appeared healthy after their long time in orbit, upon their return they faced a number of days under medical observation.
Reserve astronaut, Meganne Christian, told Reuters on March 19, “It’s still a big difference going from that weightlessness to suddenly being under gravity again. So they have to adapt to that both physically and mentally. So, that will be under direct medical supervision for a couple of weeks.”
“They’ve been there a long time and so they have lost some bones density, they’ve lost some muscle mass simply because they haven’t been working against gravity. They’ve probably lost some cardiovascular fitness as well because the heart is a muscle and that doesn’t have to work as hard when you’re in microgravity,” she said.
Following their successful return to Earth, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Manager, Steve Stich, praised the two and their resilience.
“You know, the thing I think back of this whole time frame is how really resilient Butch and Suni were the whole time…They launched on what was going to be a short test flight with the crew flight test vehicle with Boeing. And then they moved very quickly into station air command operations and they became seamlessly part of the International Space Station,” Stitch said.
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Isaacman’s confirmation
Trump’s pick to serve as NASA Administrator, Jared Isaacman, has been referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
As of now, no date has been scheduled for his confirmation hearing, leaving the timeline for his confirmation in limbo.
However, nearly 30 former NASA astronauts have come out and endorsed him and have urged the Senate to expedite his confirmation process.
In addition, eight Republican governors, including Florida’s Ron DeSantis, and Arkansas’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders, wrote to Ted Cruz, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chairman, advocating for his “swift” confirmation commenting on Isaacman’s understanding of “the complex landscape of modern space exploration.”
Bethany Stevens, a NASA spokeswoman, recently told Fox News, “I think that these governors are cognizant that the result of the November election was a mandate from the American people to implement change and to bring about change. And President Trump has been bringing about that change since day one. The next step here is to confirm Jared Isaacman expeditiously, so that we can get to work on the president’s ambitious space agenda, as he touted in his inaugural address.”
“We were going to go to the moon and to Mars and beyond, and we have less than four years at this point to get through that considerably ambitious agenda,” she said. “And we need to implement his leadership here at NASA in order to get the ball rolling there. So I think that’s the next step towards being America First in Space,” she said.
