Apart from blaming Biden, is Elon really going up to rescue them? I'd like to see that. "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. "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!!!"
I think he was annoying Trump and he sees an opportunity to give him some busy work to keep him distracted
Literally not a rescue. They can leave at any time since their ride home has been there since October. We also could have already sent a different dragon crew capsule if we wanted. We didn’t because Suni and Butch were willing to extend their mission and perform the mission that two of four astronauts that were scheduled to go up in October were going to perform. It would have cost taxpayers tens of millions in additional spending to fly them back earlier. I though we were for fiscal responsibility?
You don’t have a clue what you are talking about. SpaceX was doing something they were not planning to do? False. SpaceX is being paid $5B by NASA as part of the Commercial Crew Program to take astronauts to the space station between 2022 and 2030. In 2024 SpaceX was scheduled to return Crew 7 and launch Crew 8 and 9 to the space station. All of those happened as planned (e.g. not “unplanned”). After Boeing’s failure all that changed was pushing back the Crew 9 launch date and Crew 8 return by about a month each, and removing two astronauts that were planned to ride up in Crew 9. This amounted to personnel shuffling, not SpaceX doing anything beyond what they were contracted to do already. The “rescue” as ill-informed MAGA types want to call it, is simply Crew 9 returning to earth as planned. Crew 9 was scheduled to return in February but this has pushed a month because Crew 10 is a new design and SpaceX asked NASA for more time. I don’t have a problem with it, and am a huge fan of SpaceX’s and particularly Gwynne Shotwell, but this narrative that the astronauts need to be rescued or they’re stuck in space against their will, etc. is asinine.
Don't disagree with this, the only thing is that there are only so many seats going up and coming back and now you have 2 extra astronauts to bring back on Space X so I don't know how that changed the schedule. Did they have to leave 2 off one of the flights or are they sending an extra flight with 2 going up and 4 coming back?
Not sure why people in the middle like you and I get branded as “liberal” by the MAGA contingent but so it goes.
Because anything that's not in lockstep/goosestep with MAGA is LiBerAl? Simple minds need simple concepts.
So let’s clear this up, your contention is that two astronauts catching a ride on an already scheduled mission is some extraordinary and heroic act by SpaceX? Why, because of the names on the space suits? Nobody has contested that Boeing effed up, repeatedly. But that doesn’t mean that SpaceX is doing anything extraordinary here. NASA literally sent up an already scheduled mission with two astronauts instead of four so Suni and Butch would have a ride home when they completed the mission.
Their candidate won the election and somehow, it’s only made them more spiteful and deranged. An in-depth study will be done on the unstable psyche of MAGA zealots one day.
I have no such contention. Given you obviously follow this a lot more closely than I do, I acquiesce.
Biden didn't care about the astronauts. Or more accurately, Biden's people didn't care about the astronauts. Biden likely had no clue there were astronauts stranded.
There was some minor rescheduling required because Boeing had to send Starliner home to make available the second airlock since Crew 8 and 9 would be docked at the same time, but it wasn’t anything unusual. As for the crew, yes, NASA left two of the four scheduled astronauts out of the September launch. Suni and Butch are performing the mission of the two astronauts that were bumped off that flight and are returning per plan in Feb/March as a crew of four. At the end of the day it was effectively just a change in personnel. I’m sure it was very disappointing for the two astronauts that were bumped as they’re not going to be in the Crew 10 mission (potentially Crew 11 scheduled for some time in the H2 2025).
No. My contention is Trump is taking advantage of a situation like a smart politician does. I also think there is a lot of stuff we do not know. That said...I think Wilmore and Williams are more than ready to be home considering they went on an 8 day mission lol.
