Review: Stuck in Space

by Jeff Foust
Monday, March 23, 2026

Stuck in Space: An Astronaut’s Hope Through the Unexpected
by Butch Wilmore
The Heirloom Press, 2026
hardcover, 240 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-967496-04-4
US$32.99

Throughout the saga that started in the middle of 2024 with the crewed test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, NASA bristled at any suggestion that the two astronauts on that flight, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, were “stuck” or “stranded” in space. They could leave the station at any time in an emergency, either on Starliner itself or a Crew Dragon spacecraft, the agency reiterated, even as officials ultimately decided it was not safe enough for the two to perform a normal return to Earth on Starliner.

Wilmore, the commander of the Crew Flight Test mission, left the agency after returning to Earth last year, a test flight that stretched from a couple weeks to more than nine months in space. He has published a memoir that focuses on that flight called… Stuck in Space.

Wilmore is aware that most people who would read his memoir are interested about that mission. He spreads that account throughout the book: each chapter starts with some aspect of the mission, from the final preparations for launch through reaching orbit to the thruster problems that threatened the mission and their lives. Using that as an introduction, he then dives into earlier parts of his life: growing up in Tennessee, becoming a naval aviator, and later joining NASA.

While the severity of the problems with the spacecraft have become clearer since the mission, including with the recent release of a NASA report (see “‘We failed them’: NASA grapples with Starliner”, The Space Review, February 23, 2026), his account makes clear just how dangerous the situation was on the spacecraft as several thrusters failed, causing a loss of full control in six degrees of freedom until controllers on the ground are able to restore some of them.

“Based on the spacecraft’s current condition,” he writes of that point in Starliner’s approach to the ISS, “I am fairly certain that if we do not dock, we will be forced to depart the vicinity of the ISS and likely won’t make it back to Earth. The realization hits hard. We must dock, or we probably won’t survive.” At the time, NASA minimized the threat to the crew: the thruster failures were an annoyance and a problem to resolve. But to Wilmore, they were life and death.

Wilmore does not dwell on that drama, nor does he assess blame on NASA, Boeing, or others. He credited a “lifetime of preparation” throughout his career, as well as extensive training on potential contingencies like this, for getting through it.

A curious absence in his recollection of the mission, though, is the role that his fellow crewmember, Williams, played on the flight. During his vignettes throughout the book about the Starliner mission, he hardly mentions her, including both during the thruster failures on approach to the ISS as well as other aspects of the flight. It is an odd oversight.

Wilmore is a devout Christian, and throughout the book he describes the role he believes that God has played for him, quoting the Bible as he recounts how his beliefs shaped his personal and professional life. That includes his experience with Starliner.

“The truth is, we have never felt stuck, stranded, or abandoned aboard the ISS,” he writes. So why, then, title his book Stuck in Space? He argues that “we often feel stuck in our circumstances, our difficulties, our problems, and even the normal seasons of life,” but he is reassured by his faith. “In some ways, I am stuck in space,” he writes from the vantage point of the end of his extended ISS stay, “but in reality, I am exactly where He intends for me to be.”

Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

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