A public debt game has broken out about who is responsible for leaving two NASA astronauts who have been stuck at the International Space Station (ISS) for more than eight months.
Last week, Elon Musk blamed NASA's choice to extend Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore's ISS mission on 'political reasons' during a FOX News -Farably interview with President Donald Trump, who added that Biden would leave them in space .
Rudy Ridolfi, a respected former commander of the space system in the US Army, told DailyMail.com that 'the vitriolic hatred of the Biden administration for Elon' may have influenced how NASA dealt with the situation.
Williams and Wilmore have started with what an eight-day ISS mission should be on on board Boeing's Starliner Spacecraft last June. But their capsule was plagued by box problems and helium leaks before, during and after the launch.
These countless technical problems led NASA to postpone the return flight of the astronauts, but the desk still entertained the opportunity to use Starliner to bring them home and gave Boeing more than 12 weeks to try the problems off the ground to solve.
At the end of August, NASA officials decided that there was still too much uncertainty about the performance of Starliner and spaced SpaceX to bring Williams and Wilmore home instead, so that Starliner Home was described the following month.
But “Elon who came to the rescue was not in the cards,” said Ridolfi. He suggested that the reason that NASA had not been applied to SpaceX before was possibly due to the controversial relationship of the Biden administration with the CEO, Musk.
“The Biden administration that relies on SpaceX to return the astronauts would question his decisions about Starliner,” he said. “In their world, Boeing was the leading space company.”
During a FOX News -Farse Interview with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, Elon Musk said that astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore were links [on the International Space Station] For political reasons, which is not good '
Since that decision of Augustus, the return date of Williams and Wilmore has changed several times. NASA currently wants to bring them home around 19 or 20 March.
By that time, an eight -day mission should have been extended to more than nine months.
On Thursday, Musk claimed that he tried to accelerate the return of the Starliner crew, but was rejected.
'SpaceX could have returned them a few months ago. I offered this directly to the Biden administration and they refused. Return was pushed back for political reasons, “he said in a post on X, a social media site that he owns.
Neal K. Shah is an AI expert who has followed Musk's trip in politics,
He believes that when Elon said that NASA's decision was 'politics', he pointed to 'Nasa's confused web of contracts, business interests and administrative decisions'.
Shah explained that political agendas and disputes about the company can influence NASA decisions, such as the spacecraft of companies to use and how to manage public relations.
'These partnerships are in the best interests of NASA. The credibility of Boeing and NASA is at stake, “he said.
'If something goes wrong in their partnership, NASA's working relationships can suffer with all its contractors. And then there is the financial impact. '
NASA Astronauten Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore only had to spend eight days at the ISS when they launched Boeing's Starliner Spacecraft on 5 June 2024. But they have recorded technical problems with Starliner for more than eight months
NASA signed a $ 4.2 billion contract with Boeing to finance the development of Starliner and its test flights, including the mission that Williams and Wilmore have retained on the ISS.
In essence, Musk seems to “think that the long -term stay of the astronauts can be proof that priorities other than the immediate well -being of astronauts have priority,” he said.
Bruce Mcandless III, an author and expert in American space history, said Dailymail.com: “It is unclear how politics, large writing, played a role in the decision of NASA.”
“If a” political “was involved, it might have been a bias of Agency for the successful track record of SpaceX compared to the troubled Starliner program,” he added.
Starliner returned to Earth in September and left his astronauts behind a ride home on a SpaceX spacecraft. Their current return date is planned for 19 or 20 March
By the time they come home, Williams and Wilmore have spent more than nine months on board the international space station
SpaceX has become one of NASA's most used contractors, and it is possible that his track record of reliability in the desk of the agency to bring Williams and Wilmore home to one of their spacecraft, according to Mcandless.
NASA officials have refuted claims that politics has influenced their choices.
“I can tell you unambiguously, from a personal point of view, that politics did not play a role in this decision,” said the then NASA manager Bill Nelson during the briefing of Augustus where he announced the decision. “It has absolutely nothing to do with it.”
Other sources in the industry have said that they were also not aware of any political influence on that decision.
In addition, NASA officials have repeatedly said that the Starliner crew is not 'stranded' or 'abandoned' and the astronauts themselves have repeated those statements.
During a recent interview with CNN, Wilmore said: “We don't feel abandoned. We don't feel stuck. We don't feel stranded. I understand why others might think so. We are prepared. We are dedicated. '
In a statement that was mailed to DailyMail.com on Friday, a NASA spokesperson said: 'NASA is aimed at safely performing our crew rotation missions and work on board the international space station for humanity and future long -term missions to the moon and Mars. '
The spokesperson also noted that NASA made changes to the SpaceX launch scheme in January with which Williams and Wilmore could return home earlier than the launch date that had been established in December 2024.
