US President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk accused former President Joe Biden of leaving two Nasa astronauts stranded aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for “political reasons”.
In a joint interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, Musk claimed, “They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good.”
Trump, responding to questions about the situation, added, “They got left in space… He [Biden] was going to leave them there. I think he didn’t want the publicity.”
Delayed return mission
Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore were originally scheduled for an eight-day mission in June, but they have now been in space for 258 days due to issues with Boeing’s Starliner capsule.
The capsule returned to Earth without them, prompting Nasa to delay their return.
Musk’s SpaceX launched a Crew Dragon capsule in September to rescue the astronauts, which successfully docked at the ISS. However, Nasa has postponed their return multiple times. The billionaire CEO criticised the delays, calling them “ridiculous.”
“At the president’s request, or instruction, we are accelerating the return of the astronauts,” Musk stated. “We have brought astronauts back from the space station many times before, and always with success.”
Nasa announced in December that Wilmore and Williams would remain aboard the ISS until a new SpaceX crew arrives in late March, after which they would go through a handover process before departing.
Astronauts deny claims of abandonment
Despite Trump’s claims on social media that Biden “abandoned” the astronauts, Williams and Wilmore denied feeling stranded.
“We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded,” Wilmore told CNN, acknowledging that “it’s a little bit longer stay than we had expected.”