Jan. 29 (UPI) — President Donald Trump asked Elon Musk and SpaceX to “go get” stranded astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore from the International Space Station, blaming the Biden administration for their extended time in space.
“I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to ‘go get’ the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden administration,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday, according to The Hill. “They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon.”
SpaceX has been part of the plans to bring Williams and Wilmore home for months since NASA decided it was not safe for them to return to Earth on the Boeing Starliner they arrived in last year.
Since then, NASA and SpaceX have worked with a highly choreographed ISS schedule to get the astronauts back home. They were originally set to return on a SpaceX craft in February but were pushed back to March.
NASA said the change was needed to give NASA and SpaceX additional time to complete the processing needed on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission to bring the astronauts home.
Musk campaigned in support of Trump for the presidency and had maintained his closeness since, laid the blame on Trump’s predecessor on Tuesday.
“The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space Station as soon as possible,” Musk said on X. “We will do so, Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”
Williams and Wilmore, both veteran NASA astronauts, traveled to the ISS on the Boeing Starliner June 5 for an 8-10-mission to test the new spaceship as an option to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
But propellant issues on the new Starliner left NASA to decide to return the spaceship back to Earth unmanned with William and Wilmore returning home on another spacecraft.