Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore Credit Donald Trump, Elon Musk for Help in Return to Earth

NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore have opened up about their days at the International Space Station (ISS) over 286 days in the first TV interview, saying that their extended stay was noticed by US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Speaking to Fox News Channel anchor Bill Hemmer, Williams said she was glad that their nine-month orbit in space allowed Trump, Musk, and a lot of people to see what was happening at the ISS.

“It’s Elon Musk and it’s President Trump,” Williams, who was sat next to co-astronaut Wilmore, said in her interview with Hemmer.

She remarked that their stay at the ISS was being noticed, with a lot of people taking it “very seriously.” She added, “[It allows them to] understand that our involvement as a country, as a spacefaring nation, is really important throughout the world. It sets an example, and it shows our ability to be able to do the hard things, put people in space, operate in space, work in space, and then bring us back. It’s important, and I appreciate that.”

In her reply to Hemmer on what she felt after she found out that she was not going home anytime soon Williams said she had to pivot to adapt to the turn of events. “My first thought was we just gotta pivot,” she said. “If this was the destiny, our spacecraft is going to go home based on decisions made here, we are going to be up there until February. I was like okay let's make the best of it. We planned, we trained we would be there for some part of [the] time. So we were ready to jump into it and take on the tasks that were given to us."

Williams and Wilmore were stuck in space after the initial eight-day planned mission by NASA, involving Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, failed. The astronauts spent a total of 286 days at the ISS, adapting to their long stay, which kept getting extended until earlier this month.

Read more: Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore Blame NASA For Delayed Rescue on Elon Musk's SpaceX Craft