President Donald Trump has asked SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to ‘go get’ two astronauts who remain stuck in space.
‘I have just asked Elon Musk and SpaceX to “go get” the two brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned by the Biden administration,’ he wrote on his Truth Social platform Tuesday evening.
‘They have been waiting many months on [the] Space Station,’ he continued.
‘Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe,’ the president said.
‘Good luck Elon!!!’
The 53-year-old billionaire vowed in a post to retrieve Butch Wilmore, 62, and Sunita Williams, 59, ‘as soon as possible.’
He also hit out at former President Joe Biden for not acting sooner.
‘Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long,’ Musk lamented.
President Donald Trump has asked SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to ‘go get’ two astronauts who remain stuck in space
Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stuck at the International Space Station since June 5. They are pictured giving a news conference in July
Musk vowed in a post to retrieve Butch Wilmore, 62, and Sunita Williams, 59, ‘as soon as possible’
But Musk’s spacecraft company had been tasked in August with bringing the two astronauts back to Earth in February after NASA officials deemed Boeing’s Starliner was not up to the mission.
Yet Williams’ and Wilmore’s replacements are not set to arrive at the International Space Station until late March or early April – meaning that the stranded astronauts will have to stay until then to conduct a handover.
Wilmore and Williams first landed at the International Space Station on June 5, and have been left stranded there ever since.
The pair’s visit was originally only supposed to last eight days, but due to safety concerns, NASA decided to send the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they arrived in back to Earth without anyone inside.
Earlier this month, Wilmore and Williams were heard telling NASA bigwigs ‘eventually, we want to go home.’
Williams also told students at the Massachusetts high school she graduated from that she is now ‘trying to remember what it’s like to walk,’ CBS News reports.
‘I’ve been up here long enough right now, I’ve been trying to remember what it’s like to walk,’ she recently told students at Needham High School. ‘I haven’t walked. I haven’t sat down. I haven’t laid down.
Musk hit out at former President Joe Biden for not acting sooner
Commentator Ian Miles Cheong then replied that the Biden administration ‘hated you more than they wanted to rescue those astronauts,’ which Musk said was ‘True’
‘You don’t have to, you can just close your eyes and float where you are right here.’
The astronaut also told the students the delay in coming home was ‘a little bit of a shock.
‘We knew that it would be probably a month or so, honestly,’ she said of her and Wilmore’s voyage.
‘But the extended stay was a little bit different.’
The pair had been doomed by a cascade of vexing thruster failures and helium leaks in the Boeing capsule, which marred their trip to the space station.
They ended up in a holding pattern as engineers conducted tests and debated what to do about the trip back.
Yet NASA has denied that the astronauts are stranded, noting that since the arrival of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission with two empty seats in late September, Williams and Wilmore have had a safe ride home, according to Ars Technica, which suggests that Trump’s directive may just be a way to shame his predecessor.
The administration had already decided that it was too risky to bring Williams and Wilmore back to Earth on Boeing’s capsule – and announced over the summer they would instead arrive back on a SpaceX spacecraft.
‘This has not been an easy decision, but it is absolutely the right one,’ Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator, said at the time.
Williams and Wilmore had been doomed by a cascade of vexing thruster failures and helium leaks in the Boeing capsule, which marred their trip to the space station
If Williams and Wilmore were to depart before the new crew arrives, it would leave just a single astronaut – Don Pettit – on board to operate the entire US segment of the International Space Station
But the Crew-10 mission that was set to fly up to the International Space Station to retrieve Williams and Wilmore has been delayed by at least a month because SpaceX’s new fifth Crew Dragon spacecraft was not yet operational, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The mission is now not slated to begin until late March or early April, meaning Williams and Wilmore will have to stay several more months before they can return to Earth.
If Williams and Wilmore were to depart before the new crew arrives, it would leave just a single astronaut – Don Pettit – on board to operate the entire US segment of the International Space Station.
It would also result in the cancellation of a planned spacewalk scheduled for March, and leave just a single person to prepare a Northrop Grumman cargo spacecraft for departure – which an unidentified NASA source told Ars Technica would be difficult.
‘It takes time to load trash; everything has to be packed in certain bags in certain locations for various reasons,’ the source explained.
‘For example, any batteries that are being trashed have to be in a fireproof container. Bags have to be loaded in certain locations to maintain the proper center of gravity. And you’ve got seven crew members worth of trash that have already been waiting since the last disposal flight.’
DailyMail.com has reached out to NASA for comment.
Its prior decision to use SpaceX to retrieve the astronauts represented a major blow to Boeing, adding to the safety concerns plaguing the company on its airplane side.
Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled program after years of delays and ballooning costs.
Williams told a group of students this month she is ‘trying to remember what it’s like to walk’
The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests both in space and on the ground.
Williams and Wilmore also initially said they had trust in the thruster testing being conducted. They had no complaints, they added, and enjoyed pitching in with space station work.
Yet Starliner’s woes began long before Williams and Wilmore took it up to the space station.
Bad software fouled the first test flight without a crew in 2019, prompting a do-over in 2022.
Then parachute and other issues cropped up, including a helium leak in the capsule’s propellant system that nixed a launch attempt in May. The leak eventually was deemed to be isolated and small enough to pose no concern. But more leaks sprouted following liftoff, and five thrusters also failed.
All but one of those small thrusters restarted in flight. But engineers remain perplexed as to why some thruster seals appear to swell, obstructing the propellant lines, then revert to their normal size.
These 28 thrusters are vital.
Besides needed for space station rendezvous, they keep the capsule pointed in the right direction at flight’s end as bigger engines steer the craft out of orbit. Coming in crooked could result in catastrophe.
Still, NASA isn’t giving up on Boeing, with Administrator Bill Nelson saying he is ‘100%’ certain that Starliner will fly again.
