Trump tells Musk to 'go get' Starliner astronauts

SpaceX was already planning to return 'virtually abandoned' astros. Did Elon forget?

An early morning post by US President Donald Trump caused some furrowed brows in the space community after he instructed Elon Musk to "go get" the crew of Boeing's Starliner, who are currently enjoying an unexpected stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

In the post, Trump wrote: "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. 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!!!"

Musk responded via X: "The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long."

There is so much wrong with this exchange that it is difficult to know where to begin.

For starters, and we're assuming Trump meant the crew of the Boeing Starliner – Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore – the crew wasn't "virtually abandoned." With the cooperation of SpaceX, NASA opted to make the duo part of Crew-9, which launched with just two astronauts rather than four last year.

The duo's return, as part of Crew-9 aboard a Crew Dragon, is scheduled for March 2025. The date was pushed back from February due to delays in constructing a new SpaceX Crew Dragon. Making the Starliner duo part of Crew-9 means the return will, as far as NASA is concerned, be just another crew rotation for the ISS rather than a rescue mission.

The exchange between Trump and Musk came after Oracle announced it would use Starlink connectivity for its Enterprise Communications Platform (ECP). The plan is to use the satellite broadband network to bring Oracle's cloud to hard-to-reach places. It will be interesting to see whom Musk will blame for any unexpected outages.

That said, if there had been an emergency, the Starliner crew could have returned at any time.

The Starliner capsule was deemed unsafe to transport the crew under nominal conditions following issues, including thruster problems. After a lengthy evaluation, NASA decided to return the capsule to Earth without a crew and integrate the Boeing duo into Crew-9.

The Starliner capsule ultimately landed safely.

Elon Musk pointing out the International Space Station, at Trump's 2025 inauguration ... Click for source

We emailed Musk's company with our queries: "SpaceX is already scheduled to return the astronauts as part of Crew 9. Is Elon Musk referring to an earlier, unscheduled mission? Were there options to return the crew earlier that were not taken up as a result of interference from the Biden administration?"

It has yet to respond.

Musk's response to Trump's post should give even the most die-hard SpaceX fan pause. This, after all, is the individual charged with making a crewed mission to Mars happen, and he is seemingly unable to patiently explain the facts surrounding the "virtually abandoned" astronauts that his company already plans to return to Earth. ®