Down to Earth: Trump, Musk Bringing Stranded Astronauts Home

Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, two American astronauts who have been stranded on the International Space Station since June, are scheduled to touch down on the Gulf Coast near Tallahassee, Florida, at 5:57 p.m Tuesday.

Their successful rescue will be another example of a promise kept by President Donald Trump. The president has made returning the astronauts to Earth a top priority, and he is using Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX to do it. 

The astronauts were unable to return to Earth after their regularly scheduled eight-day mission after their Boeing aircraft’s propulsion system was deemed too unsafe for their return trip. The mission has now stretched out to 285 days. 

Reacting to the SpaceX rocket launch, Daily Signal President and Executive Editor Rob Bluey said on Monday the Democrats’ criticism of Musk had reached the point of absurdity, given the good that Musk is trying to do, not just with rescuing the astronauts, but also streamlining the federal government.

Boeing is the primary contractor of the Space Launch System for NASA’s Artemis program. The program has cost the American taxpayers $23.8 billion since its creation in 2011 to its first test flight in 2022. Unlike Musk’s rockets, the Artemis megarocket is not reusable and costs about $4.1 billion for every launch.

The astronauts finally left the ISS on Tuesday in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, named Freedom. The returning pair are joined by another American astronaut, Nick Hague, and the Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.

The Biden administration failed to bring the astronauts home and was accused last month by Trump of not paying enough attention to the matter. 

“[Then-President Joe Biden] was going to leave them in space,” Trump told the press in February. In the same interview, Musk said he expected to bring the astronauts back in about four weeks at the request of the new president. 

Trump followed up his remarks in early March. “Biden was embarrassed by what happened, and he said, ‘Leave them up there.’ I would have said, ‘If you’re embarrassed, you got to get them out.’ Elon is right now preparing a ship to go up and get them,” Trump said in the Oval Office. 

As for what the astronauts are excited about doing once they get back to Earth, Wilmore hopes to continue ministering as an elder in his Baptist church and smelling freshly mowed grass. In an interview in the ISS, Wilmore praised God.

Williams is also known for her faith, having brought the sacred Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita, up to space. She has said she is looking forward to taking long walks with her dogs and swimming in the ocean. 

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