NASA astronauts, speaking from space, debunked President Donald Trump’s claims that they had been left behind.
Sunita Williams said she and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore were not stranded on the International Space Station despite comments Trump made last month that they were “virtually abandoned” by former President Joe Biden and needed saving.
“We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck,” said Williams, speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday night. “Help us change the rhetoric, help us change the narrative. Let’s change it to ‘prepared and committed.’”
The astronauts arrived at the space station in June on what was intended as a 10-day mission. They were supposed to return on Boeing’s Starliner, but problems with the vehicle’s thrusters, among other issues, forced NASA to determine another way to return them.
Trump’s comments appeared to turn a typically bipartisan space agency into a political cudgel. His calls for Elon Musk to pick up the astronauts also drew attention because SpaceX, founded by the Trump confidant, had already contracted in August to do so.
Trump blamed the Biden administration for leaving them on the station. “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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Musk also described the astronauts as “stranded.”
NASA has since moved up a late March return flight to March 12. The agency said it was able to speed up the return because it would use a heavily tested SpaceX capsule that required fewer safety checks instead of a newer one.
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