SpaceX founder Elon Musk has begun publicly insulting former International Space Station commander, Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen. He disagreed with the billionaire on Twitter about the situation with NASA astronauts who have been «stuck» aboard the ISS for several months.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has begun publicly insulting former International Space Station commander, Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen. He disagreed with the billionaire on Twitter about the situation with NASA astronauts who have been «stuck» aboard the ISS for several months.
Two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were testing Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft, were supposed to return to Earth back in June, but instead they remained on the ISS for several months due to problems with the capsule.
Boeing’s Starliner launched on June 5, despitea small leak of helium gas. Helium is used to fuel the engines used for maneuvering in space and slowing down for reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.
The leak was extremely small, and engineers believed it would not affect the mission, so they continued with the launch. But four more helium leaks occurred during the mission, and five of the 28 maneuvering engines shut down during the approach to the space station, four of which were restarted.
Starliner was docked to the ISS for the maximum possible time, and was parked at the same port that the Crew Dragon spacecraft will use to deliver future astronauts. On September 6, 2024, Starliner undocked from the ISS without a crew and landed in the New Mexico desert the next day.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were scheduled to return in February 2025 aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon. In December, NASA said the two astronauts would have to wait for another SpaceX rescue ship to arrive with a replacement crew «no earlier than the end of March.»
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams denied that they were «stuck» in space in a recent interview: «we don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck.»
Musk recently accused former US President Joe Biden of leaving two astronauts aboard the International Space Station for «political reasons.»
«They were left there for political reasons, and that’s not good,» the billionaire said, sitting next to President Trump in a joint interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News Tuesday night. He added that he would expedite the astronauts’ return at the president’s request.
Trump said Biden was going to «leave those astronauts in space.» «He was going to leave them in space. I think he was going to leave them in space… He didn’t want the publicity,» the current US president said.
Andreas Mogensen, a Danish astronaut who previously served as commander of the ISS until March of last year, criticized Musk for the comments. «What a lie. And from someone who complains about the lack of honesty in the mainstream media,» Mogensen wrote.
A few hours later, Musk responded by calling the Dane an «idiot» and using a derogatory term for people with mental retardation. The SpaceX owner said the company could have returned the astronauts months ago and had offered to do so to the Biden administration, but was turned down.
Mogensen responded to Musk by noting that he admired Musk’s work with SpaceX and Tesla, but added, «You know as well as I do that Butch and Suni are returning with Crew 9 as planned back in September of last year. Even now, you are not sending a rescue ship to bring them home.»
Elon Musk later called for the space station to be deorbited ahead of schedule.
«It’s time to start preparing for the ISS deorbiting. It has served its purpose. It has very little additional benefit. We flew to Mars,» Musk wrote on the social network X.
When asked to clarify whether this means the ISS will be deorbited before 2030, the current date NASA plans to decommission the station, Musk replied that it will happen in two years.
«The decision is up to the president, but my recommendation is as soon as possible. I recommend in 2 years,» he wrote.
Previously, NASA and its partners planned to decommission the ISS in 2030, but Russia officially extended its commitment to support the station only until 2028. This disagreement worries NASA officials who are planning for the ISS’s final days.
In June, the US agency awarded SpaceX a contract to develop a deorbit vehicle based on the Dragon spacecraft, which is to guide the more than 450-ton station to a safe return to a remote stretch of ocean.
