22/03/2025
President Donald Trump indicated he would pay for astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to get overtime after they ended up spending 9 months in space.
The president told Fox News’ Peter Doocy on Friday, March 21, that he was never informed that astronauts don't receive overtime pay. Doocy said Williams and Wilmore, who spent 286 days at the International Space Station, would get $5 per day in incidentals, which amounts to an additional $1,430.
“Nobody ever mentioned this to me,” Trump said, per Forbes. “If I have to, I’ll pay it out of my own pocket."
“I’ll take care of that,” added Trump, 78.
Earlier this week, NASA told PEOPLE in a statement that while astronauts are on the ISS they "receive regular, 40-hour work-week salaries," but they "do not receive overtime or holiday/weekend pay.”
"While in space, NASA astronauts are on official travel orders as federal employees, so their transportation, lodging, and meals are provided,” the statement continued. “They also are on long-term TDY, and receive the incidentals amount for each day they are in space. The incidentals amount is reduced by the percentage required for the length of the trip per federal travel regulations.
Ahead of Williams' and Wilmore's return to Earth on Tuesday, March 18, Trump blamed their lengthy space stay on his predecessor, Joe Biden. He said in a Jan. 28 Truth Social post that he had asked Elon Musk and SpaceX to "'go get' the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration."
Despite Trump’s remarks, NASA had already been collaborating with SpaceX for months on a plan to bring the astronauts home. Additionally, NASA said in December that it planned to bring the astronauts back to Earth “no earlier than late March.
Meanwhile, Williams and Wilmore rejected the claims they were abandoned. Speaking with CNN's Anderson Cooper in february, Wilmore said that while he understood "why others may think that," they came to space prepared "for any and all contingencies that we can conceive of."
"We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded," he added.
Wilmore and Williams first arrived at the ISS in June 2024, originally expecting to stay in space for no more than 10 days.
However, after their spacecraft encountered mechanical issues, their return was delayed. After weeks of troubleshooting, the spacecraft was sent back to Earth without them.
After nine months, the pair started their journey back to Earth at 1:05 a.m. EST on Tuesday, March 18, and undocked from the International Space Station "right on time" — four days after a new crew arrived at the ISS.
Their module safely splashed down off the coast of Florida early Tuesday evening, where they were greeted by dolphins as well as their colleagues.
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