Cynical Reason NASA Abandoned Stranded Astronauts in Space Revealed

A public debate is raging in the US over who is to blame for two NASA astronauts being stuck on the International Space Station for more than eight months. Former US Space Systems Commander Rudy Ridolfi has speculated on what may have really caused NASA's delay.

Last week, Elon Musk accused NASA of extending Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore's mission to the ISS for "political reasons" during a joint FOX News interview with President Donald Trump. Both blamed Biden for planning to "leave them in space."

Former US Space Systems Commander Rudy Ridolfi told the Daily Mail that the Biden administration's "fierce hatred of Musk" may have influenced how NASA handled the situation.

Williams and Wilmore were supposed to have launched on an eight-day mission to the ISS aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft last June. That happened, but their capsule suffered engine problems and helium leaks before, during and after launch.

Numerous technical problems forced NASA to delay the astronauts' return, but the agency was still considering using Starliner to bring them home and gave Boeing more than 12 weeks to try to fix the problems on Earth.

In late August, NASA officials decided there was still too much uncertainty about Starliner's effectiveness and asked SpaceX to bring Williams and Wilmore home by sending Starliner back to Earth uncrewed in September.

Ridolfi explained that Elon Musk was not available to help in this situation. Ridolfi suggested that the reason NASA did not approach SpaceX sooner could be due to the Biden administration's contentious relationship with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Since that August decision, Williams and Wilmore's return date has changed several times. NASA currently plans to bring them home around March 19 or 20. By then, the astronauts will have been in space for nine months.

On Thursday, Musk said he had long tried to expedite the return of the Starliner crew, but had been rebuffed. Even Musk's direct appeal to the Biden administration had no effect. The administration refused.

Artificial intelligence expert Neil K. Shah interpreted Musk's statement that astronauts are still in space "for political reasons" as pointing to "a tangled web of contracts, corporate interests, and administrative decisions at NASA."

Shah explained that political interests and interagency disputes can influence NASA's decisions, such as which companies' spacecraft to use and how to manage public relations. If something goes wrong between NASA and Boeing, NASA's working relationships with all of its contractors could suffer. Clearly, the financial consequences would be dire.

NASA signed a $4.2 billion contract with Boeing to fund Starliner's development and test flights, including the mission that eventually left Williams and Wilmore stranded on the ISS.

NASA officials denied that politics influenced their choice, and other industry sources said they were also unaware of any political influence on the decision.

Moreover, NASA officials have repeatedly stated that the Starliner crew is not "stranded" or "abandoned," and the astronauts themselves have backed up those claims. But we're clearly going to hear a lot more about this story.