The NASA astronauts who have been stranded in space for nine months following what was supposed to be an eight day mission have responded to Elon Musk’s claims he tried to get them home early.
The astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have said they were unaware of any offer by Elon Musk to bring them back to Earth early, in a press conference from the International Space Station (ISS).
So, what did Musk claim?
“They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,” he said to Fox News, in a joint interview with President Trump.
Musk went on: “Well, we don’t want to be complacent, but we have brought astronauts back from the space station many times before, and always with success.”
Trump also said that his predecessor Joe Biden was ‘going to leave them in space’.
These comments were called out by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut and former ISS commander Andreas Mogensen on social media and Musk responded to them in his usual manner.
Mogensen wrote: “What a lie. And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media.”
Musk then doubled down on his claims and said: “SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago. I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused. Return WAS pushed back for political reasons.”
Dr Phil Metzger, director of the Stephen W Hawking Center for Microgravity Research and Education, called out Musk too.
Musk replied: “Price was never even discussed! They flatly refused. We would have made it work within the annual budget. The real issue is that they did not want positive press for someone who supported Trump.”
Williams and Wilmore say that they were unaware of any offer of the sort.
“From my standpoint, politics is not playing into this at all,” Wilmore said in an interview yesterday. “We came up prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short. That’s what we do in human space flight. That’s what your nation’s human space flight program is all about, planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies. And we did that.”
“I can only say that Mr Musk, what he says is absolutely factual,” Wilmore said. “We have no information on that though whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered, who it was offered to, how that processes went. That’s information that we simply don’t have, so I believe him. I don’t know all those details and I don’t think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe that you would be hoping for.”
