On Thursday, NASA Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are scheduled to get out of spaces to get out of the International Space Station. However, despite a plea of President Trump to bring them home as soon as possible, the couple will not return home yet. This will be a space walk of routine outside the space station.
Meanwhile, NASA is fighting to contain the consequences of what seems to be a false political effort of Trump to embarrass the space agency and the administration of Biden for the fact that Williams and Wilmore, almost eight months after they launched In orbit on the Starliner of Boeing spacecraft. , they are still there.
Bruahaha started Tuesday night when the founder of Spacex and Trump Elon Musk confidant Posted in x that the president had asked Spacex to bring the two “stranded” astronauts to the earth. Musk added that Spacex would do it and “terrible that the Biden administration would leave them there for so long.”
A few hours later, Trump himself intervened, saying“I just asked Elon Musk and @spacex to ‘go to look for’ the 2 brave astronauts that the Biden administration has virtually abandoned in space. They have been waiting for many months at the space station. Elon will soon be on the way to their way of their Way.
This is out of payroll
Now, all this is quite crazy for many reasons, but here there are two of the greatest. First, Williams and Wilmore are not stranded. His trip home, the Dragon Crew-9 spacecraft, has been docked at the station since September. They can go home at any time. In that sense, Spacex has already “rescued” the two former Starliner astronauts.
Second, the couple had to return at the end of February, in a week within now, before a problem with a dragon spacecraft of the crew delayed the launch of the CREW-10 mission. This pushed the launch of the crew-10 until the end of March, and because NASA wants a few days for a delivery in orbit, this transferred the return of crew 9, with Williams and Wilmore on board, in early April.
So, to summarize, any talk about the need to “go and obtain” Williams and Wilmore in space is the folder. NASA had literally been planning for months, bringing home crew in February. Then, a problem with a Spacex vehicle delayed that return to April.