'Star Trek's LeVar Burton Defends Space Exploration After Astronaut Drama

TMZ

"Star Trek" star LeVar Burton is shutting down speculation there were not enough safety precautions in place for the mission that left astronauts Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore stuck in space ... clarifying these pros knew the risks.

Transcript

00:00Star Trek is obviously the most famous space show of all time.

00:05Yeah.

00:06You've heard about the Boeing in space, right?

00:08Stuck in space until potentially 2025?

00:10Yes.

00:11So in the world, we have precautions to get people out when they get stuck, but we don't

00:18have anything like that in space.

00:19No, we don't.

00:20Do we need to have something before we just are sending people up there?

00:24Look, this is all exploration.

00:28You cannot possibly plan for every single contingency.

00:32Yeah.

00:33Believe me, the astronauts know the risk that they're taking.

00:37There's risk in everything.

00:38Right.

00:39Right?

00:40Yeah.

00:41And what the NASA administrator said last week was, space exploration is risky.

00:48Right.

00:49And in the best of circumstances, it's dangerous.

00:53But exploring the ocean.

00:54There is no but.

00:55The ocean, you can survive with the proper equipment.

01:00Space is a vacuum, baby.

01:02It's a vacuum.

01:03It's dangerous, and it's a brave endeavor, and I'm grateful to those who go up there

01:09because the research that they do up there actually contributes to life being better

01:14here on Earth.

01:15Okay.

01:16So, I'm very grateful to NASA and its mission.

01:19If it's that important though, shouldn't we have some sort of like Coast Guard or something?

01:23You know what I mean?

01:24No.

01:25It's not possible.

01:26Okay.

01:27It's not possible.

01:28It's just not possible.

01:30Can I ask real quick before I let you go, do you have any ideas how we got, anyone should

01:36be, you know, working to get these guys out of here?

01:41It's the Kobayashi Maneuver.

01:42Okay?

01:43It's a no-win scenario.

01:44LeVar, you're the best.

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