After manipulating their situation for political gain, Donald Trump is more than happy to leave astronauts stranded

When astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams left Earth for the International Space Station, they likely didn’t expect their eight day stay to turn into a nine month fiasco, nor did they expect to become pawns in Donald Trump’s political game, but here we are.

Wilmore and Williams launched into space aboard the Boeing Starliner spacecraft way back in June 2024, however, issues with their craft meant that they were unable to return to Earth after their mission aboard the ISS was complete. 

Since then there have been numerous attempts to bring the stranded astronauts home, but as you can imagine, space travel requires perfect conditions, even the smallest error could be fatal. As such, launch after launch has been cancelled resulting in the pair of astronauts extending their stay from eight days to nine months.

Donald Trump promised to bring the astronauts home

Wilmore and Williams’ story has captivated people on Earth – naturally many want to see them return home safely. Perhaps seeing a chance to score some political points, Trump vowed to get the pair back down safely. He also fired a few shots at his predecessor, Joe Bidem, claiming that the previous president had “abandoned” the astronauts.

Trump predictably called upon his sugar daddy, Elon Musk, to use one of his SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets to bring them home. Is that really the best idea though? If I were these astronauts I’d be panicking at the prospect of getting in one of Musk’s ships – the last two he sent into space exploded in spectacular fashion.

The president posted to Truth Social announcing that he had asked for Musk’s help:

“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. Good luck Elon!!!”

Musk made his own post to X confirming that they would bring the astronauts home and claimed it was, “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”

Now Trump and Musk have abandoned the astronauts

Of course, after all of this big talk about how Trump’s predecessor had left Wilmore and Williams stranded, now maybe these two stooges are realizing that the situation is not as straightforward as they had envisioned. On Wednesday the launch of the Falcon 9 had to be postponed due to a hydraulic system issue with a ground support clamp arm according to Reuters.

The next available window to launch is today, Friday, March 14th around 7 P.M. EDT. Of course, it wouldn’t be a surprise if that launch were cancelled too.

Joe Biden didn’t abandon the astronauts

It goes without saying, but the narrative that Biden left Wilmore and Williams on the ISS because he didn’t care is simply not true. The Biden administration had already put in place plans to bring them home before Trump was sworn in. Newsweek reported that the use of Musk’s rockets was also proposed, but Trump and Musk have presented this as being their idea, likely as a way to make the former president look worse.

To Trump, this is simply an opportunity to get some good PR and score some points against his predecessor. He probably doesn’t care if Wilmore and Williams make it home, he’s just glad to have the opportunity to have people praise him for doing something good for once.