Trump tells Musk to 'go get' Starliner astronauts
- Reference: 1738162027
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/29/trump_musk_starliner/
- Source link:
In the post, Trump [1]wrote : "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. They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!"
Musk [2]responded via X: "The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long."
[3]
There is so much wrong with this exchange that it is difficult to know where to begin.
[4]
[5]
For starters, and we're assuming Trump meant the crew of the Boeing Starliner – Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore – the crew wasn't "virtually abandoned." With the cooperation of SpaceX, NASA opted to make the duo part of Crew-9, which launched with just two astronauts rather than four last year.
The duo's return, as part of Crew-9 aboard a Crew Dragon, is scheduled for March 2025. The date was pushed back from February due to [6]delays in constructing a new SpaceX Crew Dragon. Making the Starliner duo part of Crew-9 means the return will, as far as NASA is concerned, be just another crew rotation for the ISS rather than a rescue mission.
The exchange between Trump and Musk came after Oracle announced it would use Starlink connectivity for its Enterprise Communications Platform (ECP). The plan is to use the satellite broadband network to bring Oracle's cloud to hard-to-reach places. It will be interesting to see whom Musk will blame for any unexpected outages.
[7]Boeing warns of more financial hits from strikes, costlier parts – and Starliner, of course
[8]NASA spacewalkers to swab the ISS for microbial life
[9]Stranded in space: Starliner crew to remain in orbit even longer as SpaceX faces delays
[10]Boeing's Calamity Capsule returns to Earth without a crew
That said, if there had been an emergency, the Starliner crew could have returned at any time.
The Starliner capsule was deemed unsafe to transport the crew under nominal conditions following issues, including thruster problems. After a lengthy evaluation, NASA decided to return the capsule to Earth without a crew and integrate the Boeing duo into Crew-9.
[11]
The Starliner capsule ultimately landed safely.
We emailed Musk's company with our queries: "SpaceX is already scheduled to return the astronauts as part of Crew 9. Is Elon Musk referring to an earlier, unscheduled mission? Were there options to return the crew earlier that were not taken up as a result of interference from the Biden administration?"
It has yet to respond.
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Musk's response to Trump's post should give even the most die-hard SpaceX fan pause. This, after all, is the individual charged with making a crewed mission to Mars happen, and he is seemingly unable to patiently explain the facts surrounding the "virtually abandoned" astronauts that his company already plans to return to Earth. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113909188940119917
[2] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1884365928038563880
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z5pettPrkc4cCAWWXcyVrAAAAYE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[6] https://blogs.nasa.gov/crew-10/2024/12/17/nasa-adjusts-crew-10-launch-date/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/24/boeing_results_q4/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/22/nasa_spacewalkers_microbes/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/19/spacex_delayed_boeing_crew/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/07/boeing_starliner_returns/
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[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Or Trump.
Believe the Pravda and shutup, товарищ
I'm afraid eventually Russia won the Cold War. But not with communism, but showing how oligarchs can take the power and get enormously rich with the proper president.
Stay up there.
Given a choice, maybe they'd prefer to stay on the ISS for the next four years. Has anyone asked them?
Good timing.
He makes it look like it was Biden responsible rather than a large USian corporation but if he'd left it any longer more people would realise it was what was just coming up on a (delayed) schedule.
Re: Good timing.
TheRegister readers include a significant population of techies and scientists with an interest in space. The staff keep up with events in space so can report on them with existing knowledge and contacts. If you look for the same story on Fox it reports Trump's and Musk's words without mentioning any of the clear evidence that the words do not match reality. I do not know to what extent Fox does not know any better, is deliberately supporting Trump or is just afraid to be honest. Certainly many of their readers do not know any better, partly from lack of interest and partly because their sources of news do not go the extra inch with fact checking.
NPR reported the background accurately. We will see which of NPR and Fox has a future.
Can we please get Musk and Trump both to Mars as soon as possible?
Save fuel
Just get them half-way there. Forever.
And here we go..
The people vigorously defending SpaceX as criticisms of Musk have mounted should really understand that a complete lack of accountability have led us to the point where flat out lies are normalised.
Allowing "the vision" to override reasonable analysis of the business practises, government manipulation and practical progress towards stated goals leads us to the point where it all looks just a little bit corrupt.
"It has yet to respond."
This is an improvement. They didn't respond with a poop emoji.
Suspicious
The Starliner capsule was in fact fine. Yet NASA was pretending it wasn’t.
Re: Suspicious
Do you not understand the concept of risk? NASA never said that the capsule was not fine, they said that the risk of a failure during the capsule return was too high to be acceptable. That too high level may have only been 1%, but with the lives of two astronauts on the line they decided that it was too high.
The chances were that the capsule would return safely, and it did, but there was an unacceptable risk involved. So the fact that the capsule made it back is no reason for their decision to be wrong.
.
Now if you wish to argue this further either please stop posting as AC, cos if you continue then everyone will just assume that you are a troll.
Re: Suspicious
Looks like we have an AC volunteer to test it. Up you go...!
Re: Suspicious
careful with that nickname, we know what musktwat did to the monkeys
Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!
This reads rather too much like a convenient accident has been arranged to happen if, as the wording suggests, Elon will actually be onboard the mission.
Re: Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!
Musk thought he would get an office in the west wing and report directly to the president. He got an office across the road and reports to the chief of staff. He has swallowed the insult without even calling Trump a 'Pedo Guy' on Twitter. Looks like he is completely house trained.
People vs Musk
Brits fed up with Musk might want to consider this - https://peoplevselon.co.uk/
Typical "American Furst" attitude.
What about the poor Nigerian astronaut that's stuck up there for years? What are they doing to get him? He only emailed me the other day asking for $20 million to fund the mission to rescue him. I'm sure Space Karen has that sort of spare change!
Nigerian astronaut
He's a Prince as well which just makes it worse
Re: Nigerian astronaut
Ah but... someday my Prince will come back...
Nothing says Musk like taking credit for "business as usual"