NASA's 'stranded' astronauts respond to Elon Musk's claim he offered to get them home early

The NASA astronauts who have been stranded in space for nine months following what was supposed to be an eight day mission have responded to Elon Musk's claims he tried to get them home early.

On June 5 last year, Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore left Earth for the International Space Station (ISS) but the spacecraft that took them encountered problems, so much so that it was unsafe for the astronauts to return and the spacecraft came back down without them.

They have been in space ever since. US President Donald Trump and Musk claimed the two were left "stranded" in space for political reasons.

These comments were called out by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut and former ISS commander Andreas Mogensen on social media and Musk responded to them using a slur.

He doubled down on the claims and said: "SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago. I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused. Return WAS pushed back for political reasons."

Dr Phil Metzger, director of the Stephen W Hawking Center for Microgravity Research and Education, called out what Musk said too and the tech billionaire responded to him, repeating the same claims.

Musk said: "Price was never even discussed! They flatly refused. We would have made it work within the annual budget. The real issue is that they did not want positive press for someone who supported Trump."

Williams and Wilmore are now due to return to Earth on March 19/20 through SpaceX, Musk's aerospace company, aboard its Crew-9 return flight.

The astronauts took part in a press conference ahead of their departure and Wilmore was asked about the credibility of Musk's claims.

"I can only say that Mr Musk, what he says is absolutely factual," he said. "We have no information on that [the coming home early offer] though whatsoever; what was offered, what was not offered, who it was offered to, how that processes went.

"That's information that we simply don't have, so I believe him."

Wilmore was also asked if he thought politics has played a role in them being held up in space for so long.

"From my standpoint, politics is not playing into this at all," he said. "We came up prepared to stay long, even though we planned to stay short. That's what we do in human space flight. That's what your nation's human space flight program is all about, planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies. And we did that."

NASA's former deputy administrator and former astronaut, Pam Melroy, and NASA's former administrator Bill Nelson, have both said they were not aware of any offer being made by Musk to bring them home early.

NASA has previously denied any claims of political involvement impacting when Wilmore and Williams return to Earth.

Elsewhere, a fascinating image of Earth has been captured and shared during a top-secret space mission and some conservatives on TikTok are expressing their Donald Trump voters' regret after being affected by the recent DOGE mass layoffs.

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