Summary
Elon Musk accused former president Joe Biden of stranding NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the ISS “for political reasons,” prompting Danish astronaut Andreas “Andy” Mogensen to label the claim “a lie.”
“What a lie. And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media,” wrote the 48-year-old European Space Agency astronaut.
Musk called Mogensen “fully retarded” and claimed SpaceX could’ve rescued the astronauts months ago, without evidence.
NASA refuted Musk’s abandonment claim, calling it baseless.
The ISS has enough spacecraft docked to take everyone home at a moments notice, always. Nobody needs to launch anything.
They broke that rule briefly when the Boeing capsule was deemed unfit for use, but they quickly fixed that.
Even without the Boeing capsule they could have all gotten home in an emergency. It wouldn’t have been pleasant (I think the plan was to basically strap the people without seats to a padded bulkhead), but it’d be better than the alternative.