Donald Trump orders Elon Musk to ‘go get’ NASA astronauts that have been ‘abandoned’ in space for over 6 months
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Since June 2024, NASA astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore have remained stranded at the space station, unable to make their return journey to Earth.
President Donald Trump has called on Elon Musk and SpaceX to retrieve two astronauts, alleging that the Biden Administration has left them stranded in space.
Starting from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5, 2024, the Boeing Starliner Calypso, which was operated by NASA, embarked on a journey to the International Space Station (ISS) that would last for a total of eight days.
Unfortunately, it has been more than six months since the astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore were taken out of space, and they have not yet returned.
During the approach of the Boeing Starliner Calypso to the International Space Station (ISS), the thrusters of the capsule had a failure. As a result, NASA determined that it would be too risky for Williams and Wilmore to return to Earth onboard the space vehicle as scheduled on June 14.
Furthermore, their return was subsequently postponed, and a plan was put in place for the duo to travel back with SpaceX Crew-9. However, NASA later revealed in a blog post that they had further adjusted the date for Williams and Wilmore to be picked up.
‘Aiming no sooner than late March 2025 to launch four crew members to the International Space Station’ was the explanation that was provided on the website of the SpaceX Crew-10 mission.
The modification provides the teams from NASA and SpaceX with additional time to finish processing on a new Dragon spacecraft that will be used for the trip. It is anticipated that the new spacecraft will arrive at the processing facility of the business in Florida at the beginning of January,” the statement continued.
Despite this, Donald Trump has reportedly made a request to Elon Musk to bring the astronauts back to Earth even sooner. He made this announcement on his social media platform, Truth Social, last night (January 28), saying, “I have just asked Elon Musk and Space X to ‘go get’ the two courageous astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration.”
They have been waiting on the Space Station for a considerable amount of time. Elon is going to arrive in a short while. I am hoping that everyone will be safe. Success to you, Elon!!!”
Musk posted the message on Twitter earlier today, and he accompanied it with an emoji that looked like a salute.
In spite of the fact that Trump has accused “the Biden Administration” of having “virtually abandoned” the astronauts, NASA has stated that it and SpaceX have “assessed various options for managing the next crewed handover.
” These options include the utilisation of another Dragon spacecraft and manifest modifications.
“After careful consideration, the team determined that launching Crew-10 in late March, following completion of the new Dragon spacecraft, was the best option for meeting NASA’s requirements and achieving space station objectives for 2025,” its blog post stated in its conclusion.
