MT. JULIET, Tenn. (WKRN) — Retired NASA astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore credit his upbringing in Mt. Juliet for serving to to shape his decades-long profession of service.
“I was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Mom and Dad just happened to be there visiting my aunt, I’m told, and to the hospital they went. Eventually, I actually lived near Antioch. I went to Una Elementary School the first two years, first and second grade,” Wilmore defined. “And we were — my brother and I — were rambunctious. We were kind of in a subdivision, and Mom and Dad said, ‘We need to get some property,’ so we moved to the Mt. Juliet area.”
He performed soccer at Mt. Juliet Junior High School and Mt. Juliet High School.
“Coach Sims, my position coach, would say, ‘You gotta want it. You gotta want it,’ and that just instills a kind of a work ethic in a young man that you do gotta want it. And that little phrase has really stuck with me throughout my life.”
Wilmore not too long ago launched a ebook: “Stuck In Space: An Astronaut’s Hope Through the Unexpected.” It chronicles his journey as commander of Boeing’s Starliner.
“The memory that’s pretty solid in my mind is on Starliner when we’re approaching the space station when we had our thruster failures. There are eight thrusters that fire in the aft pointing direction. They’re located orthogonal. There’s a group on top, a group on the bottom, a group on the starboard side, a group on the port side. Seven at each location, but two of those at each location point aft, so there’s eight total that point aft,” Wilmore defined. “During the course of the rendezvous, we lost five of those eight aft pointing thrusters. The computer, they weren’t performing up to snuff, and the computer pulls them out. We lost the ability to fully control the spacecraft, fully in attitude and in translation. It was very, very degraded. I was manual control throughout that period, trying to maintain control of the spacecraft so we could get to a point where we could dock. That’s pretty vivid in my memory.”
His mission was meant to final 10 days, however as a substitute, it stored him in area for practically 10 months.
“This is something the Lord providentially showed me: In those types of extremist situations, fear can be very, very detrimental,” Wilmore mentioned. “It was focus. Here’s the task. We have to do this. We have to dock the space station.”
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WKRN File Photo
WKRN File Photo
Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) crew portrait of Butch Wilmore. Official Portrait. Photo Date: November 2, 2022. Location: Building 8, Room 183 – Photo Studio. Photographer: Robert Markowitz
Barry “Butch” Wilmore, Jr. High School
(Photo: WKRN)
Wilmore is a seventh-generation Tennessean who takes state delight to new heights, supporting his alma maters at any time when attainable.
“I went to Tennessee Tech — a state university. Got a master’s degree from Tennessee Tech and University of Tennessee. So seventh-generation Tennessean and just proud of my roots, proud that I can call myself a Tennessean because it provided that foundation that life built on from thereafter.”
News 2 sat down with Wilmore for a particular 30-minute report streaming on WKRN+. In it, he shared how his ebook began as tales for his two daughters as he and his spouse wished to share how their religion had been shaping their dad and mom lives lengthy earlier than they have been born.
“My parents of course the mainstay took me to church and instilled those really important truths from God’s word and into me that again has been the foundation going forward,” Wilmore mentioned.
NASA’S Artemis II astronauts returned to earth from their lunar mission on April 10, 2026 with a splashdown Captain Wilmore knew all too properly.
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“Watching the splashdown, I know the sequence … This parachute technology is much more advanced than what you realize. Just watching it all and seeing it reef up and reef up, and when it finally got a full canopy on all three of those parachutes, I’m like, ‘Yes!’” Wilmore mentioned. “All this technology — the Lord’s given us all this understanding. That’s why He’s glorified in it all. To be able to hit the bullseye from a burn you did eight days prior, I mean, it’s pretty spectacular.”
To study extra about Wilmore, you possibly can watch “Butch Wilmore: How a Tennessee astronaut found hope ‘Stuck in Space’” any time on WKRN News 2’s free related TV app: WKRN+.
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