National Public Radio flip-flopped on its own reporting on Tuesday in an attempt to contradict President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, saying that two astronauts on the International Space Station were “not stranded.”
The astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, have been on the space station since June, when they were transported there by Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, and were originally scheduled to return to Earth after eight days. However, engineers at Boeing and NASA deemed the trip unsafe after discovering engineering issues with the craft that included helium leaks and problems with five of its 28 reaction control system thrusters. The agency announced in August that it would attempt to bring the duo home on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon craft instead.
“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,” Trump wrote in a Jan. 28 post on his social-media platform, Truth Social. “Good luck Elon!!!”
In an article about the post published later in the day, NPR’s Brendan Byrne insisted that Trump was wrong in an article headlined, “Trump asks SpaceX to ‘go get’ two stranded ISS astronauts. They’re not stranded.”
“NASA has long said the crew isn’t ‘stranded,'” Byrne wrote, correctly noting that “a plan to return them safely to Earth has been in place for months.”
“In fact, NASA astronauts always train for lengthy missions,” he added.
Byrne’s column, categorized by NPR as a news item, omitted mention of an earlier piece NPR published on Sept. 29. Authored by NPR’s Emma Bowman and centered on the Crew Dragon’s arrival at the station, that story carried the headline, “SpaceX crew arrives at the ISS, with plans to bring back 2 stranded astronauts.”
Referring to “the stranded pair” of astronauts, Bowman noted that NASA made the “tough decision” to leave them behind when Starliner returned to Earth.
The most recent estimate provided by NASA indicated that the return trip would take place in late March or early April, though the date has been postponed several times. Trump did not explicitly confirm whether he was asking Musk to bump it up.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2025
Musk acknowledged Trump’s message on Tuesday evening, writing in a post on X, “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.”
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