The Astronauts Stuck in Space Are Finally Leaving the ISS. Their Final Message Is a Bold Statement: Elon Musk Was Right

After nine months orbiting Earth due to issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are finally preparing to return home aboard a SpaceX-operated spacecraft.

In late August, NASA decided that the two astronauts would remain on the International Space Station until the next crew rotation in early 2025. However, despite everything going according to plan, their return has been overshadowed by political controversies.

Context. Wilmore and Williams were launched into space in June 2024 as part of a test mission for the Starliner spacecraft. Boeing and NASA were hoping to utilize it for regular astronaut transport to the ISS, similar to what SpaceX has been doing since 2020.

Originally, the mission was expected to last only 10 days. Unfortunately, helium leaks and propulsion failures in Starliner compelled the astronauts to extend their stay until NASA decided the spacecraft would return empty. Meanwhile, Wilmore and Williams remained on the ISS, pending the arrival of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission.

After nine months of conducting microgravity experiments and performing maintenance spacewalks, the two stranded astronauts now have a return date set for March 19. This will occur a few days after the Crew-10 team, scheduled to launch on March 12, arrives at the station.

Controversy. NASA’s decision seemed primarily technical at first. The agency prioritized the safety of its astronauts by requiring Boeing to deorbit Starliner without any crew aboard. Meanwhile, the Crew-9 mission was launched with two empty seats to ensure the safe return of astronauts stranded on the ISS.

However, there’s an alternative narrative. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently claimed that the decision wasn’t based on technicalities but rather on political motives. He added that the Biden administration was solely responsible for the decision, reportedly made even before President Donald Trump took office again. Musk offered to send an additional Crew Dragon spacecraft to quickly rescue the astronauts, but he said that the White House declined his offer.

The controversy intensified due to accusations from both Musk and Trump in several interviews. Tensions escalated even further when European astronaut Andreas Mogensen publicly accused Musk of lying. This prompted an aggressive response from the SpaceX founder, who called Mogensen “fully retarded.”

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Plot twist. Although NASA refuted Musk’s statements, Wilmore and his family have presented another possibility: that Musk may be right. In a recent press conference from the ISS, the astronaut gave credibility to Musk’s claims. “I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual,” Wilmore said. However, he also clarified that he didn’t know the exact details of the decision-making process.

Adding fuel to the fire, his daughter Daryn posted a video on social media expressing her frustration with the situation. She said, “There’s a lot of politics, there’s a lot of things that I’m not at liberty to say, and that I don’t know fully about. But there’s been issues. There’s been negligence. And that’s the reason why this has just kept getting delayed. There’s just been issue after issue after issue.”

What NASA says. Senior NASA officials, such as Ken Bowersox and Steve Stich, reiterated that the astronauts’ extended stay was motivated solely by technical and operational reasons related to the safety and logistics of the ISS.

They admitted that SpaceX offered alternatives to the official plan in 2024. However, these alternatives were rejected not for political reasons but due to budgetary and technical considerations that prioritized the ISS’s operational continuity.

NASA recently published a summary of all that Wilmore and Williams have accomplished during their nine months on the Crew-9 mission. This includes more than 900 hours dedicated to key scientific research on biomanufacturing, space agriculture, advanced exercise systems, and studies on microorganisms in microgravity.

Image | NASA

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