What actually happens to Elon Musk and these “stuck” astronauts?

As a result, the CREW 9 mission started in September with only two astronauts. Wilmore and Williams have joined this crew for a full six -month space growth.

Stitch said NASA made this decision based on flight schedules to the space station and the needs of the orbiting laboratory. It also allowed time to send Spacex Spacesuits to the astronauts pair and produce seats to make them landing in the water, under parachutes, safely.

“When we set out all this, the best option was really the one we are embarking on the moment,” Stitch said. “So we made a crew 9, we flew in both empty places, we flooded a butch costume up, and also made sure that the places were suitable for the anthropometry of Butch and Suni to return them safely.”

So yes, SpaceX works with NASA to present options, including the ability to return last fall. However, these discussions were held within the program levels and their leaders: Stitch for commercial crew and Dana Weigel for the International Space Station.

“Dana and I worked to make a decision that works for the commercial crew and space station program,” Stitch said. “And then, Ken (Bowersox), we all had the process of reviewing the willingness to fly with you, and NASA administrator was also listening. So we had a recommendation to the agency and that was in the process we usually use.”

Bowersox confirmed that the decision was made at a program level.

“This is usually the way our decisions work,” Bowersx said. “The programs are working with what has the biggest meaning for them, software, technically. We will weigh on the level of the plant, and in this case we thought that the plan we came up with made a lot of sense.”

During the Teleconference, Vice President at SpaceX, Bill GEROSTEMER, was asked directly what the offer Musk was about when he mentioned the Biden administration. He did not give a significant answer.

Musk claims to have made an offer directly to senior officials in the Biden administration. We have no way of checking this, but it seems clear that the Biden administration has never announced such a proposal to lower-level employees within NASA, who have made their decision on technical rather than political reasons.

“I think you know we are working for NASA and worked with NASA together to do everything we think is the right thing,” said SpaceX employee Gerstenmayer. “You know, we were ready to support in any way that they consider the right way to support. They came out with the option you heard today, and we support this option.”

Did Trump tell NASA to accelerate the return of Butch and Suni?

By the end of last year, the Crew 9 mission was due to return in mid -February. However, there was a problem with the battery with a new Dragon spacecraft that would be used to fly a crew 10 in orbit. As a result, NASA announced On December 17, the crew’s return had been delayed in late March or early April.

After that, on February 11, NASA announced that the start of the crew 10 was brought out on March 12. It was a few weeks earlier than planned, and that was possible because NASA and SpaceX decided to exchange Dragon Capsules using a Crew Dragon vehicle before Endurance– For crew 10.

So was this change to accelerate Wilmore and Williams’s return politically driven?

The decision to exchange Endurance was made at the end of January, Stitch said, allowing the date of launch to be moved forward. Asked if political pressure was the reason, Stitch said it was not. “This is really guided by many other factors. We looked at this before some of these statements were made by the President and Mr. Musk,” he said.

Bowersox added that this was correct, but also said NASA appreciated the president’s interest in the space program.

“I can check that Steve talks about how we may need to juggle flights and change capsules a good month before there is a discussion outside NASA, but the president’s interest certainly adds energy to the conversation,” Bowers said.

This story originally appeared on Ars TechnicaS