Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore on Monday met reporters and said that they were surprised and humbled knowing that their plight in space was given extensive coverage by news media outlets globally.

“We weren’t aware of what was going on down there on Earth. The world does not revolve around us, but (actually) we were revolving around the world," Williams said. She further added that up there in space she and her colleague Butch Wilmore were focused on the job at hand in a “tunnel vision" mode.

The news conference featured Williams alongside Crew-9 astronauts Nick Hague and Butch Wilmore. The team returned to Earth on March 18 after completing a groundbreaking science mission in space.

Williams further added that she was “honoured" that people were paying attention. “I am very thankful for people paying attention. It is good for space exploration," she said.

I want to say thanks, SpaceX got us ready to go", she further added.

She said there are several goals that the space industry wants to achieve concerning space exploration.

Their prolonged stay ranks as the sixth-longest spaceflight by any US astronaut. However, the record remains with Frank Rubio, who spent 371 days in orbit after a coolant leak in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft forced an unexpected extension of his mission. He eventually returned to Earth in September 2023 aboard a replacement Soyuz.

While Rubio’s unprecedented stay in space went largely unnoticed in the media, the technical issues surrounding Boeing’s Starliner, which carried Wilmore and Williams, garnered widespread attention in the US and was also covered extensively by global media.

Williams said that she wanted to hug her husband and her dogs after returning from space and ate a grilled cheese sandwich.