The ‘Stranded’ Astronauts On The ISS Who Weren’t Really Stranded Are Finally Coming Home

Generally, most of the general public doesn’t seem to pay all that much attention to the crew rotations that happen on the International Space Station (ISS). The space station got its first long-term crew of three in 2000, and has remained continuously occupied for over 24 years since then, right up until the present day, where the station normally houses a crew of seven. This current crew that is returning now and is scheduled to splash down this evening may be the crew that has gotten the most attention in years, largely thanks to a malfunctioning spacecraft and far too much politics.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were the test astronauts for Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft, a new capsule that can potentially carry up to seven and was designed to be another option for getting crew from Earth to the space station and back, along with the four-crew SpaceX Dragon and the tried-and-true Russian three-seat Soyuz spacecraft, which has been in production in various forms since 1967.

Of course, everyone is paying attention to Wilmore and Williams because that Boeing spacecraft rather publicly and hopefully metaphorically shit the bed, when it was found to have some persistent helium leaks in its reaction control system. NASA and Boeing studied the problem, and eventually decided to play it safe and have the craft return to Earth uncrewed, where the issue could then be studied, minimizing risk to the astronauts.

And this is the point where everything seemed to go off the rails, since Williams and Wilmore’s expected eight-to-ten-day trip to the ISS would need to be extended because their original ride home was now gone. This is the point where the “stranded” narrative began, and where everything started to become wildly and absurdly politicized.

For example, back in January, President Trump posted this on his own Twitter-ish platform Truth Social:

“I have just asked Elon Musk and SpaceX to “go get” the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration. Good luck Elon!!!”

The suggestion that the astronauts needed to be rescued or “go gotten” or had been “virtually abandoned” is just untrue, and this isn’t even a question of opinion or point of view, it’s provable. It is policy on the ISS that all the astronauts must have a way to return to Earth at any moment, which is accomplished by keeping the vehicles that brought the crews to the station docked and ready to go in case of an emergency.

When Wilmore and Williams arrived on the ISS in the Starliner capsule, there were already two other craft docked to the station: a Soyuz and a SpaceX Dragon. In a severe emergency, they could have returned in the Dragon with the other four astronauts that craft arrived in, but as the Dragon was only configured for four, some significant improvisation would have been required, and NASA could have decided to send another craft, depending on the nature of the emergency.

By September, though, a new Dragon was launched to the station with a crew of two, leaving two seats free for Wilmore and Williams, who were already integrated into the station’s Expedition 72 crew, with Suni Williams acting as commander. So, even if we concede that between June and September, the two astronauts may have had a less-than-ideal escape plan, absolutely since September, with the docking of their Dragon capsule with the open seats, they have in no way been “stranded,” by any definition.

This also means that in January, when Trump asked Elon Musk to “go get” the two astronauts, the spacecraft that could “rescue” those two astronauts had already been docked to the ISS for about five months. It’s all just politics and theater.

As far as if the astronauts themselves feel stranded, it’s probably best to hear what they have to say about it all:

Cooper: There are some who have suggested here, President Trump, that that you were virtually abandoned by the last administration. Do you feel you've been abandoned? pic.twitter.com/3zCVNEjJrH

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 14, 2025

In case you don’t want to watch the video, here’s what Butch Wilmore said:

“We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded. We come prepared. We come committed. That is what your human space flight program is. It prepares for any and all contingencies that we can conceive of, and we prepare for those …that’s been the narrative from day one: stranded, abandoned, stuck – and I get it, we both get it. Help us change the narrative, let’s change it to: prepared and committed despite what you’ve been hearing. That’s what we prefer.”

That’s some real astronaut talk right there! The whole raison d’etre of an astronaut is to go to space, and that’s just what Wilmore and Williams did. Sure, they didn’t initially plan on this long a stay, but they took to their new roles as members of the ISS crew with aplomb, because that’s what they do. They’re astronauts.

NASA could have brought them home pretty easily at any point since September; but doing so would have left only three people on the ISS, leaving it quite understaffed, and it would have been expensive. Each seat on a SpaceX Dragon costs NASA about $55 million dollars – and that’s a great deal, considering all the other options. So if NASA had decided to bring them back as soon as possible and then launched a new Dragon to replace their capsule, we’re looking at $110 million, minimum.

So, $110 million versus just having the astronauts do their tour on the ISS at a time they didn’t originally plan for, and two other astronauts having their tour on the station rescheduled. I feel for the astronauts who have to wait, but $110 million is $110 million, and you’d think an administration as obsessed with efficiency as this one claims to be would respect that savings.

This wasn’t a political decision made by the Biden Administration or anything like that. This was a reasonable, well-considered choice made to deal with an unfortunate situation in the best way possible, and I think they did.

And I’m not even going to get into how Elon Musk has handled all of this. If you want to roll your eyes in disappointment, feel free to read this thread:

You are fully retarded.

SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago.

I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused.

Return WAS pushed back for political reasons.

Idiot.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2025

Ugh. The person Elon just called the r-word is Andreas Mogensen, the ISS commander. This isn’t some internet rando, it’s someone actually up there, in space, who absolutely knows what they’re talking about. And while SpaceX perhaps could have brought them back months ago, sure, NASA decided not to, for the reasons we discussed above, all very valid reasons. Not political ones. The only one politicizing this is Elon himself.

So, as we welcome these astronauts back home to Earth in a couple of hours, I think it’s worth remembering that this isn’t a rescue mission, and suggesting that it is demeans the good work and remarkable resiliency and training these astronauts demonstrated. Besides, Williams and Wilmore coming home on a Dragon allows them both to tie a longstanding record for the most different types of spacecraft an astronaut has traveled on.

The old record was held by John Young, who flew on four different classes of spacecraft: a Gemini capsule, an Apollo Command Module, an Apollo Lander, and the Space Shuttle. Williams and Wilmore will tie this, with both having traveled on a Soyuz capsule and the Space Shuttle to the ISS for previous missions, then the ill-fated Boeing Starliner that took them to the ISS, and now will be returning on a SpaceX Dragon!

I think getting a record like that is a pretty cool capstone, and we should be talking more about that than rehashing an inane “stranded” narrative.