US President Donald Trump has announced that he has authorized Elon Musk to bring back American astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded at the International Space Station (ISS) since June last year.
Speaking to the media at the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said, “We love you (astronauts), and we’re coming up to get you. You shouldn’t have been up there for so long. The most incompetent president in our history allowed this to happen to you, but this president won’t let that happen. We’re going to get you out. I’ve authorized Elon because they’ve been left up there. I hope they like each other—maybe they’ll love each other, I don’t know. But they’ve been left up there.”
Commenting on Sunita Williams, Trump said, “And I see the woman with the wild hair—a good, solid head of hair she’s got. There’s no kidding, no games with her hair. But, you know, there’s a danger up there, too. They could face failures, which would be very bad. We’ve got to get them out. So, I authorized Elon a week ago. I told him, ‘We have two people up there that Biden and Kamala left behind.’ And he knows it very well. I asked, ‘Are you equipped to get them?’ He said, ‘Yeah, he’s got a Starship,’ and they’re preparing it right now.”
Trump also said that he would personally greet the astronauts upon their return. “Well, when they come back, I’ll greet them. How about that? No, no, we’re going to get them out. I’ve authorized Elon Musk to go and get them, and he’s prepared to do so.”
Williams and Wilmore have been stranded at the ISS since June 2024 due to an issue with Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which returned to Earth without them, according to the New York Post.
The report further noted that SpaceX launched a Crew Dragon capsule in September to rescue the pair, and it successfully docked at the ISS. However, NASA opted to delay their return. In December, NASA announced that the astronauts would have to wait for another SpaceX rescue vehicle, expected to arrive with replacement crew members “no earlier than late March,” followed by a handover period before their departure.
(ANI)
