Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has claimed his Space X had approached former US President Joe Biden-led government to bring back Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore from space but the offer was rejected due to ‘political reasons’.
Speaking to Fox News, Musk, who is part of President Donald Trump’s DOGE team, said: “We definitely offered to return the astronauts earlier. There is no question about that. The astronauts were only supposed to be there for eight days and they have been there for almost 10 months.”
“Obviously, that doesn’t make any sense. SpaceX could have brought the astronauts after a few months at most and we made that offer to Biden administration,” he said.
“It was rejected for political reasons and that’s just a fact,” he said.
Musk Thanks Trump
In his X post, Musk said: “Congratulations to the @SpaceX and @NASA teams for another safe astronaut return!.”
He thanked President Trump for prioritising the mission.
Williams Returns Home
Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams and her colleague Butch Wilmore arrived on Earth on Wednesday after staying nine months in space.
Bringing the astronauts back to Earth, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 completed the agency’s ninth commercial crew rotation mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, splashing down safely in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, in the Gulf of America.
“NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, returned to Earth at 5:57 p.m. EDT,” read a statement issued by NASA.
According to reports, the capsule made a fiery entry through the Earth’s atmosphere and then four parachutes opened when the four returning astronauts splash down off the coast of Florida.
Making for an interesting visual, a pod of dolphins circled the aircraft after the capsule hit the water. The recovery ships soon took the astronauts away after their safe landing.
“After returning to shore, the crew will fly to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and reunite with their families,” NASA said.
The astronauts will now undergo a long recovery process.
