Astronauts Emphasize Gratitude as NASA Contends With Uncertainty

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spoke in their first news conference since returning to Earth two weeks ago from an unexpectedly long I.S.S. stay that lasted more than nine months.

After a stay aboard the International Space Station that unexpectedly stretched to nine and a half months, the NASA astronaut Suni Williams is back to doing something she enjoys on Earth.

“I actually went out and ran three miles yesterday,” Ms. Williams, who returned to Earth two weeks ago, said on Monday during a news conference at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “So I will give myself a little pat on the back.”

Ms. Williams and her fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore repeatedly expressed gratitude. During Ms. Williams’s remarks, she thanked the two astronauts who had shared the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that gave them a ride back to Earth. She thanked NASA. She thanked SpaceX. She thanked Boeing. She thanked the medical team that helped them get accustomed to gravity again.

Those words of gratitude may have been appreciated by people at the space agency who — like many federal workers — are uncertain about their mission, their direction or even their continued employment since President Trump’s inauguration.

Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore had traveled to orbit in June last year in a test flight of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft for what had been intended as a brief stay at the International Space Station. But because of problems with Starliner’s propulsion system, NASA officials decided that Starliner should return to Earth empty and that Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore would stay in orbit until February.

Back on Earth, they have returned to a NASA that is in transition, although what course it will take is not known.