Why did Elon Musk just say Trump wants to bring two stranded astronauts home?
For reasons that were not immediately clear, SpaceX founder Elon Musk took to his social media site X on Tuesday evening to make a perplexing space-based pronouncement.
"The POTUS has asked SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so," Musk wrote. "Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long."
Now generally, at Ars Technica, it is not our policy to write stories strictly based on things Elon Musk says on X. However, this statement was so declarative, and so consternation-inducing for NASA, it bears a bit of explication.
lmao bullshit, Ars loves to sneed about everything Elon does; it's basically TMZ but only covering Elon.
Foremost, NASA has gone to great lengths to stress that the two astronauts referenced hereβButch Wilmore and Suni Williamsβare not stranded on the International Space Station.
The astronauts are clearly stranded as has been covered extensively over the last year by even leftie organisations:
NPR also released an article insisting that the astronauts aren't stranded - https://www.npr.org/2025/01/28/nx-s1-5278636/iss-astronaut-rescue-spacex-trump:
Ars comments are of course mad:
Why wouldn't the US government want to bring two stranded astronauts home? Why is this the top comment? What are you mad about?
They were meant to be there for eight days. The eighteen month stay was planned.
And yet they're still stranded there, curious. Why don't they just fly back home? They must want to be there.
The bottom two comments - note the guy who's had an account for 17 years.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
The replacement SpaceX capsule to return them was launched in September already. Now they are just covering the next crew's shift to not waste millions of dollars on a second launch because my le astronauts... are in le space.
!spacechads Discuss how to best send all wingcucks on a collision course with Jupiter
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Wouldn't it be more cost efficient to send them to Venus?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
more cost efficient would be to launch without looking and let them drift into space for however long it might be
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More cost effective to never bring them home ever tbh
Your permanent duty station is now LEO
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I don't get it
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
LEO MEANS LOW EARTH ORBIT
1 UPMARSEY PLZ
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Hai
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
What's that mean?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Ita meansu yes
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
they already have peepeees though
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
We don't want to contaminate the future Venusian colonies
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Is the thing about the ISS smelling like shit because of a burger astronaut foid destroying the sewage system true?
Can you ping spacechads for this question?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Sending a foid to space is where the illusion of we can all do it finally breaks apart. You have to sacrifice everything to be an astronaut. There is no sense of privacy or personalized dignity. Even an overcrowded frathouse party has more freedom because you at least wouldn't be stuck with the smell of week old farts in a locked capsule while being told that your mission is the most important thing this century while floating cat piss in a jar to study the effects of low gravity on domestic animal feces to determine whether having pets in space can ever be a viable option.
One must remember that the top 1% of moids are waaaaayyyyy above the top 1% of foids on the planet, and that even among the top 1% of moids 99% would never be capable of making it in that space tin can for more than a month.
Now add foids to this mix not because the report suggested that they were actually the best of the best, but because they were the best of the available foids available, and you end up with a coin flip every time you send out a foid into space between her being alright for a foid or her causing irreversible damage to multi-billion dollar equipment due to hysteria caused by the extreme disconnect between the life she has lived and the tin can she is stuck in now.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
have s*x incel
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Sentient
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context