Astronauts vs. Musk: Public spat ensues over claims that politics delayed a flight to Earth
Source: NBC News
Feb. 20, 2025, 3:47 PM EST / Updated Feb. 20, 2025, 6:00 PM EST
Elon Musk and European astronaut Andreas Mogensen exchanged barbs online after Musk suggested in a recent interview that two NASA astronauts were left on the International Space Station “for political reasons.”
The public spat on X came in response to remarks Musk made during a pre-taped, joint interview with President Donald Trump that aired Tuesday on Fox News. The pair was asked about NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been on the space station for the past eight months, after their Boeing spacecraft ran into problems on its first crewed test flight.
“They were left up there for political reasons,” Musk said, insinuating that the Biden administration chose to keep the astronauts in space for longer than necessary.
Mogensen, who in 2015 became the first Danish citizen to fly in space, took aim at Musk’s unsupported claim, posting: “What a lie. And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media.”
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/elon-musk-astronauts-public-spat-rcna193011
= new reply since forum marked as read
is that there are only 2 "certified" entities that can transport humans to/from the ISS and that is SpaceX and Russia (Soyuz).
Boeing would have been an alternative to SpaceX but fucked up. This is where Europe, Canada, and JAPAN should have stepped it up to develop and build craft that could do this but they didn't. Meanwhile China is busy gaining experience with their fledgling space program, with ships orbiting/landing on the moon and with them slowly assembling their own space station - Tiangong. Final section was installed a couple years ago -
