Trump, Musk Claim Biden Left Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore Stranded In Space Due To 'Political Reasons'

Washington DC: In a recent interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, US President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk accused former President Joe Biden for abandoning NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore on the International Space Station (ISS) for “political reasons”.

Elon Musk stated that the astronauts were left in space due to the President’s instructions, which delayed their return to a ridiculous extent. They were left stranded in space, Trump added. Musk further said that this decision was not good and was made for political reasons.

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The conversation also touched upon SpaceX’s efforts to bring the astronauts back to Earth. Musk mentioned that they have successfully brought astronauts back from the space station many times before and are confident of doing it again. The mission to bring them back is expected to take place in about four weeks.

However, Trump claimed that Musk’s company, SpaceX, did not receive approval from the Biden administration. He went on to say that Biden wanted to leave the astronauts in space to avoid publicity.

Originally, Williams and Wilmore were supposed to be on an eight-day mission, but technical issues with Boeing’s Starliner, including helium leaks and thruster malfunctions, made it unsafe for their return.

After multiple postponements, NASA now plans to bring them back to Earth in late March 2025 using a SpaceX spacecraft.

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NASA earlier had planned for Williams and Wilmore to return abroad with the Starliner capsule. However, early in the mission, gas leaks and thruster issues raised safety concerns, leading NASA to reassess the capsule’s reliability. The agency had arranged for their return on SpaceX’s crew-9 capsule.

The mission, which was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida’s Launch Complex 39A on March 5, featured a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket tossing the Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, into orbit.

This marked the eighth commercial crew rotation mission to the ISS. Astronauts Dominick, Barratt, Epps, and Grebenkin’s journey to the ISS was a scientific expedition that included over 200 experiments and technology demonstrations.