I've written before that Presidentish Joe Biden is "easily the worst human being to hold the office of president of the United States of America," but would you believe he might also be the smallest, pettiest, and most vindictive?
Of course, you would.
Before we get into this you have to know up front that there's less to this story than promised by the Daily Mail headline. Shocker, right? But this is still a story worth getting into, as you're about to see.
Here's the headline: NASA's stranded astronauts finally snap as they appear to let slip who's to blame for leaving them there. I watched the video and nobody "snapped" or let anything "slip." Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were asked a direct question and Butch gave an honest and thoughtful answer.
Butch and Suni flew to the International Space Station last June as part of Boeing Starliner's Crew Flight Test (CFT) to certify the spaceship for routine manned missions. Problems with the service module's thrusters developed during ISS docking and, after weeks of tests, NASA decided to return Starliner to Earth unmanned, and juggle the crew schedule so that Suni and Butch could return on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule with empty seats.
And Another Thing: For what it's worth, Starliner returned safely to Earth, and had there been astronauts aboard, they would not have been in any danger. However, no more CFT missions have been scheduled, and Boeing has yet to say whether they've solved the thruster issues. With ISS tentatively scheduled to be de-orbited in 2030 (or sooner), the Starliner might never fly again.
They were originally scheduled to stay on ISS for eight to 10 days but, as of this writing, have been there for 243 days. For their part, Butch and Suni seem to love it up in the ISS and, aside perhaps from the hardship of being away from their families for eight or nine extra months, are enjoying one last long-term orbital stay. They're seriously into this astronaut stuff.
The latest news is that during a video press conference this week, a Washington Post reporter asked the "stranded" astronauts, "Elon Musk has said that he made the offer to bring you guys back earlier and that it was denied… Is that true?”
Butch replied, "I can only say that what Elon Musk says is absolutely factual," but he also admitted that "I don't know all those details, and I don't think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe that you would be hoping for."
So Butch doesn't know anything that he didn't read in the papers, to borrow an old saw, but when the founder of SpaceX says he could have gotten them home sooner, you have to believe that's true. Musk launches cargo and people into orbit the way 12-year-old me used to shoot bottle rockets at his best friend, Kevin.
(It's OK; Kevin was shooting them right back.)
This week, Musk reiterated his claim, saying, "SpaceX could have sent up another Dragon and brought them home 6 months ago, but the Biden White House (not NASA) refused to allow it.”
On the flipside, Butch said in that same orbital presser, "From my standpoint, politics is not playing into this at all."
But I have to wonder about that assessment. If Musk did indeed offer to send up a Dragon Crew to rescue Suni and Butch, why was the offer refused? Maybe it was money. Maybe the schedule for the limited number of docking bays didn't work out, although I asked Grok about that, and it said, "Yes, there were windows with at least one free Crew Dragon-capable port." Or... maybe Biden didn't want to hand Musk a PR win during a presidential election campaign.
I'd like to think it was just a budgetary issue, but spending other people's money has never been an issue for Joe Biden. If there's ever a chance to be petty, he'll take it.
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