Things quickly became ugly, with Musk calling Mogensen an “idiot” and using a derogatory term.
“Spacex could have brought them back several months ago”, ” Musk wrote. “I offered this directly to the Biden administration and they refused. The return was postponed for political reasons. Silly.”
Mogensen, who himself took the plane towards and from the space station aboard a rocket and a space capsule, replied 13 minutes later, saying that he “admired” what Musk has long accomplished.
“You know as well as me, that Butch and Suni come back with Crew-9, as has been the plan since last September”, ” He said on xReferring to the NASA plan to bring Wilmore and Williams back to earth with two current crew members of the space station. “Even now, you don’t send a rescue ship to bring them home. They have returned to the dragon capsule that has been on the ISS since last September. »»
Mogensen was commander of the space station from September 2023 to March 2024 – his last stay at the outpost in orbit. He did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
NASA said that it was “focused on the safe execution of our crew rotation missions and work on the international space station for the benefit of humanity and future long -term missions on The Moon and Mars ”.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Friday, the retired astronaut of NASA Scott Kelly came to the defense of Mogensen, saying on X: “I was commander of @iss when Andy, @astro_andreas invaded his first space mission. He is one of the most competent, trustworthy and the most honest people I have ever met. This rhetoric is beyond the pale but, unfortunately, not surprising. He does not deserve this kind of lack of respect. »»
In response, Musk doubled his insult to Mogenson and took a blow to the twin brother of Kelly, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona.
“He is an idiot who attacked me publicly, despite not having an idea of what really happened,” said Musk on X. “BTW, your brother claims to be independent, but is only Demo donor. “
Mark Kelly then responded to the technological billionaire, Say on Friday on x: “Hey @elonmusk, when you finally get the nerve to climb in a rocket, come and talk to the three of us.”
The retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who ordered the space station in 2013, also weighed on the dispute, republishing the comments he Made for the first time on X on February 14.
“Suni and Butch have never been” blocked “in space,” wrote Hadfield. “They are prepared and engaged in the mission, like all professional astronauts. The commander of the Suni space station, they make space balls, working hard for the name of NASA and all the partners, having time of life. »»
The sputum occurs as the role of Musk that one of Trump’s best political advisers has brought a new check to a meticulous examination His penchant to spread false and misleading information. More recently, Musk broadcast a variety of misleading complaints on fraud and expenses throughout the US government.
Musk used the situation of Wilmore and Williams to make a political statement before. A little over a week after the inauguration of Trump, Musk said on x That the president asked SpaceX to bring the two astronauts home “as soon as possible”.
“We will do it,” he wrote. “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”
Wilmore and Williams started at the international space station on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft in June, intended to spend about a week as part of the test flight.
However, the capsule has encountered several problems, forcing astronauts to stay at the space station longer than expected. NASA has chosen to Bring the Starliner back to Earth in September without anyone on board.
The space agency, under the Biden administration, decided to Call SpaceX to bring back Wilmore and Williams to the earth. The plan involved mixing the existing crew assignments to release two of the four seats on a SpaceX capsule which launched at the end of September, so that Wilmore and Williams could occupy the seats during the return trip.
This flight was scheduled for this month, but was postponed at the end of March at the beginning of the end of March. The reason, NASA said at the time was to allow more time to “finish treatment” on a new spacecraft spacex which will transport four crew members to the space station.
In a statement, NASA said that the launch of this flight, known as Crew-10, and the return of astronauts to the ISS are both “preparation for the waiting mission and the completion of the completion of the completion of the completion of Next process of preparing for the agency certification ”.
Once the new crew members, Wilmore and Williams, as well as the NASA astronaut, Nick Hague and the Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will leave the station on a separate capsule. The new and outing teams are generally overlapping during a transfer period, during which astronauts can exchange information on current experiences, maintenance projects and other protocols.
In the interview with Fox News, President Trump also doubled on the unfounded assertion that Wilmore and Williams were abandoned.
“They were left in space,” said Trump.
However, the two astronauts rejected this notion in recent interviews.
Talk to cnn On February 13, Wilmore said: “It’s rhetoric. This is the story of the first day: blocked, abandoned, stuck – and I understand. We both get it. But it is, once again, not our program of human space flight. We do not feel abandoned, we do not feel stuck, we do not feel blocked. “”
Musk also said Thursday that the space station must be removed from the orbit and that its recommendation was to do so in two years, rather than the plan of NASA to descend the installation by 2030.
“He fulfilled his goal. There is very little incremental utility, “he wrote. “Let’s go to Mars.”
NASA said in a statement that the agency intended to use the international space station, as well as other commercial space stations that could be built in the future, as training fields and laboratories for crew missions on the Moon and Mars.
“We are impatient to find out more about the Trump administration plans for our agency,” the statement said.