SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said that the two astronauts stuck in space were left there for political reasons.
Musk mentioned this on 18 February during a joint interview with president Donald Trump conducted by Fox news.
SpaceX has already been contracted to bring the stuck astronauts back to earth, and preparations are being made towards the rescue operations.
The space incident
Two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stuck in space since June last year.
Initially expected to return after just a week, the two test pilots became stranded after NASA returned their brand-new vehicle, Boeing’s Starliner capsule empty following serious mechanical issues.
They have been in space since then, but will hopefully be rescued and brought back to earth in March or April by SpaceX, thanks to the new administration.
The company first attempted to rescue the astronauts in September after launching a Crew Dragon Capsule.
Though it successfully arrived at the space station, it was not yet cleared to return with the pair onboard, so the rescue is expected by the end of March or early April.
SpaceX is the first private company to send rockets to Mars, making it a strategic one in space exploration.
Elon Musk has played a critical role in the Trump administration, serving both in technical and non-technical roles.
He is also the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which is in charge of cutting down government expenses.
Other Elon Musk stories
Musk has consistently been in the headlines since Trump took power. During the TikTok ban in the U.S., it was rumored that he was to buy the company.
He is also currently popular for launching Grok, an AI chatbot built on X, and is being accused of scraping government data through DOGE to train his AI models.
What do you think?
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