Did Joe Biden really abandon American astronauts on ISS? The truth behind a cosmic tragedy

Writer: Shubham Ghosh

Washington D.C.: The American space programme has never been far from political controversy. During the Cold War, the US was engaged in a massive space race with the erstwhile Soviet Union, which saw both sides sending astronauts to the ‘outer world’, including the moon, in a bid to outdo each other politically. It seems space politics has returned to haunt American politics in the 21st century and this time, it is about bringing astronauts back to Earth. 

Days after President Donald Trump and his senior advisor Elon Musk claimed Joe Biden deliberately abandoned astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams on the International Space Station (ISS) for political reasons, Wilmore backed the SpaceX CEO’s claim. 

Speaking from the ISS at a press conference with Williams on March 5, 2025, Wilmore responded to a question about politics playing a role in their delayed rescue by saying, “I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual…I believe him.” He, however, could not give details about earlier ‘offers’ to bring them home.  

Wilmore denied claims that politics played a part in the “decision around the timing of their return from space”.

Wilmore’s daughter has an interesting opinion

Daryn Wilmore, the 16-year-old daughter of Barry, said “negligence” and “a lot of politics” led to her father remaining stuck on the ISS. “There’s a lot of politics, there’s a lot of things that I’m not at liberty say in that I don’t know fully about. But there’s been issues, there’s been negligence,” she said in a social media post in February.

Another former astronaut Clayton Anderson, who has also spent time on the ISS, bought into Musk’s claims. Speaking to The New York Post, he said there is some truth in what the SpaceX chief said about ‘political’ reasons. He stated that Biden may not have agreed to Musk’s offer of a rescue because he didn’t want a possible disaster just before the 2024 presidential elections. 

“My opinion is that they didn’t want a disaster right before an election that they were trying to win and therefore asked the astronauts to sacrifice and stay in orbit,” the former spaceman was quoted as saying by The Post. 

Why are Wilmore and Williams stuck at the ISS?

Wilmore and Williams went to the ISS in June, 2024, on a Boeing Starliner for an eight-day test mission to certify the spaceship. A technical issue with the craft led NASA to take the decision that the crew would stay on the ISS till a relief flight could be organized. SpaceX was given the responsibility of bringing the astronauts back. 

NASA later revealed that the pair would return on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission’s spaceship, which was launched in September last year with two crew members instead of four to accommodate them. Initially scheduled for February, the mission was postponed to March, due to delays by SpaceX in getting the spacecraft ready for Crew-10, whose crew would replace the crew of Crew-9.  Crew-9 would not be able to return from the ISS unless Crew-10 relieved them. 

But NASA and Space X deferred the Crew-10 mission’s launch on March 12 because of a hydraulic system problem with the Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center. The astronauts were expected to return to Earth on March 16 but now might return only on March 17 or later. 

Other astronauts stranded besides Williams and Wilmore are Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov. 

Astronauts in space, politics on Earth

On February 20, Musk said in a post on X about ‘rescuing’ the astronauts, “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.”

While Musk found support from Wilmore and Anderson, others in the space fraternity disagreed with Musk’s version of events. Among them is Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen. Rejecting the tech billionaire’s claim that Biden deliberately abandoned the two astronauts on the ISS, Mogensen said in a post on X, “What a lie. And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media.”

Musk hit back at Morgensen, who is a European Space Agency astronaut and has flown to the ISS more than once, calling him “fully retarded”. Amid claims and counter-claims, however, Musk never elaborated on the offer that he reportedly made to Biden on the astronaut’s return. 

Trump shows concern 

In January, President Trump said he asked Musk and SpaceX to “go get” the two astronauts as soon as possible. In a post on Truth Social, he said the astronauts were “virtually abandoned” by the Biden Administration and wished Musk good luck in bringing them back safely. 

On March 7, he spoke on the matter again at the Oval Office. There, he said, “We love you [astronauts], and we’re coming up to get you. You shouldn’t have been up there for so long.”

Taking a dig at his predecessor, Trump said the “most incompetent president in the history of the US” allowed it to happen to the astronauts, but he wouldn’t. 

Musk also slammed Biden in a post on X after Trump asked him to get the astronauts: “The @POTUS has asked SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the Space Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”

Do the astronauts really need to be rescued? 

While the astronauts’ families are naturally frustrated by their delayed return, how much danger are Wilmore and Williams in? 

The Boeing capsule, which was meant bring them home, has remained docked at the ISS for the last six months and is equipped to accommodate four people.

The ‘stranded’ astronauts could have used the capsule to return home at any point in time since September, but they stayed back as part of the crew of the key Expedition 72 aboard the space station. Both Williams and Wilmore have carried out experiments and spacewalks during their stay at the station. 

While Trump and Musk claimed political factors were at play to allegedly abandon the astronauts, neither current nor former officials of NASA agreed. In an interview with Bloomberg, former NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy said she had no idea about who Musk made the offer to to bring the astronauts back. Former NASA administrator Bill Nelson said something similar to The Washington Post: “Maybe he [Elon Musk] sent a message to some lower-level person,” he said.

Did Biden really abandon the astronauts?

There is no evidence to prove claims made by Trump and Musk about Biden abandoning the astronauts. Plans to bring the duo were in place well before the Republican president took office for the second time on January 20.

Biden was still in power when Nasa outlined plans to bring the astronauts home from the ISS in December last year, proposing the use of SpaceX’s Dragon craft. Trump and Musk later said they were going to use the same vehicle.

Wilmore and Williams’s return journey was first reported in August last year, months before Trump won the election. Stich told NPR that the astronauts were set to return home aboard a SpaceX flight, calling it “the easiest and best option”.

Also in December, NASA said the ISS received two resupply flights in November and had an adequate stock of food, water, clothing and oxygen. The resupply flight even took special items for the crew to celebrate special occasions on the platform. On Christmas, Wilmore and Williams were seen donning Santa hats in a photograph that went viral on social media.

The agency has maintained steady communication with the astronauts since they reached the ISS and coordinated efforts to support them throughout their extended stay.