A political blame game has erupted over the extended stay of NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore aboard the International Space Station (ISS), where they have been stranded for over eight months due to technical issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
Elon Musk recently accused NASA of delaying their return for “political reasons” during an interview with Donald Trump on FOX News, with Trump suggesting the Biden administration was willing to “leave them in space.”
The astronauts initially embarked on an eight-day mission in June 2023, but persistent thruster malfunctions and helium leaks in Starliner led NASA to repeatedly postpone their return. While Boeing was given over 12 weeks to resolve the issues, NASA ultimately decided in late August that Starliner was not reliable enough and opted to return the spacecraft uncrewed.
Despite the urgency, NASA did not immediately call on Musk’s SpaceX for assistance, a decision former U.S. Space Systems Commander Rudy Ridolfi suggested may have been influenced by the Biden administration’s strained relationship with Musk. He argued that relying on SpaceX earlier would have undermined NASA’s commitment to Boeing as the preferred spaceflight partner.
Musk has since claimed he had offered to bring the astronauts back sooner but was turned down. NASA now aims to return Williams and Wilmore around March 19 or 20—stretching what was supposed to be an eight-day mission into a nine-month ordeal.
