Astronauts vs. Musk: A public fight breaks out over charges that politics slowed down a flight to Earth.

People like Elon Musk say that two NASA astronauts were left on the space station because of “political reasons” after their Boeing spacecraft had trouble, but this is not true.

Elon Musk and Andreas Mogensen, a European astronaut, hit each other online after Musk said in a recent interview that two NASA workers were left on the International Space Station “for political reasons.”

The public fight on X happened because of things Musk said in a pre-recorded interview with Trump that played on Fox News on Tuesday. NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been on the space station for eight months. After their Boeing ship had problems on its first crewed test flight, the two were asked about them.

Trump said, “They were left up there for political reasons.” He was implying that the Biden administration picked to keep the pilots in space longer than needed.

In 2015, Mogensen was the first person from Denmark to fly in space. He responded to Musk’s claim with a post that said, “What a lie.” Elon Musk criticized the major media for being unhonest and insulting Mogensen, stating SpaceX could have brought Butch and Suni back with Crew-9, despite political pushback. He was talking about NASA’s plan to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth with two present space station crew members. “Even now, you’re not sending a ship to save them and bring them home.” They are coming back on the Dragon ship, which has been on the ISS since September of last year.

Mogensen was in charge of the space station from September 2023 to March 2024. This was his most recent stay at the base in space. He didn’t answer right away when asked for a response.

NASA said that its “main goal is to safely carry out our crew rotation missions and work on the International Space Station for the benefit of all people and for future long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars.”

A request for comment was sent to the White House, but they did not reply right away.

Canada’s retired astronaut Chris Hadfield, who led the space station in 2013, added his voice to the argument by reposting comments he made on X on February 14.

He wrote, “Suni and Butch have never been’stranded’ in space.” “Like all professional astronauts, they’re ready for the mission and dedicated to it.” Suni is in charge of the space station, and they’re having the time of their lives doing spacewalks and working hard for NASA and all of their partners.

The fight happens at a time when Musk’s role as one of Trump’s top political advisors has made people pay more attention to how often he spreads false and incorrect information. Most recently, Musk has spread a number of false claims about government waste and spending all over the United States.

Musk has said things about politics using Wilmore and Williams’ case before. Musk said on X that Trump told SpaceX to bring the two men home “as soon as possible,” a little more than a week after Trump was sworn in as president.

He wrote, “We will do that.” “It’s awful that the Biden administration left them there for so long.”

Wilmore and Williams took a Boeing Starliner to the International Space Station in June. They planned to stay there for a week as part of the test trip.

But there were problems with the capsule, so the workers had to stay at the space station longer than planned. NASA chose to bring the Starliner back to Earth in September, but there were no people on board.

When Biden was in charge, the space agency chose to ask SpaceX to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth. Moving around the crew’s current duties was part of the plan to free up two of the four seats on a SpaceX ship that took off in late September so that Wilmore and Williams could use them on the way back.

That flight was supposed to happen this month, but it was pushed back to no earlier than late March. NASA explained at the time that it was to give more time to “complete processing” on a new SpaceX ship that will take four people to the space station.

NASA said in a statement that there will be no launch of that flight, called Crew-10, and that the astronauts will not be able to return to the ISS until the agency completes its upcoming approval of flight readiness process.

As soon as the new crew members get there, Wilmore, Williams, NASA astronaut Nick Hague, and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will leave the station on a different vessel. During a handover time, when new crews are arriving and crews are leaving, astronauts can talk to each other about ongoing experiments, maintenance projects, and other rules.

In the interview with Fox News, President Trump also repeated the false claim that Wilmore and Williams were left behind.

Trump said, “They were left in space.”

In recent talks, though, the two astronauts have pushed back against that idea.

Wilmore told CNN on February 13: “That’s been the rhetoric.” From the beginning, the story has been about being lost, trapped, or stuck, and I get it. We both get it. Again, though, that’s not what our program for sending people into space is about. We don’t feel alone, abandoned, or stuck.

On Thursday, Musk also said that the space station should be taken out of orbit. He suggested that this should happen in two years instead of 2030, which is when NASA had planned to do it.

“It did what it was supposed to do.” “The incremental value is very low,” he wrote. “Let’s go to Mars.”

In a statement, NASA said that the International Space Station and any other private space stations that might be built in the future would be used as training grounds and labs for missions with people to the moon and Mars.

The statement said, “We look forward to hearing more about the Trump Administration’s plans for our agency and expanding exploration for the good of all.”