The situation with the "forgotten" astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) has taken a new turn. In an interview with Fox News, Musk lied that astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore were not returned from the ISS for "political reasons." This caused outrage among Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who was on the station as part of Crew 7 and was the commander of Expedition 70: "What a lie. And this is said by someone who complains about the lack of honesty in the mainstream media," he wrote on his X page.
Musk's reaction was immediate, calling the astronaut a "moron," lying about "SpaceX could have brought them back a few months ago," and again calling Mogensen an "idiot." In response, the former ISS captain gave a rather restrained response that is already known to anyone who is even slightly interested in the topic of space.
"You know as well as I do, that Butch and Suni are returning with Crew-9, as has been the plan since last September. Even now, you are not sending up a rescue ship to bring them home. They are returning on the Dragon capsule that has been on ISS since last September.," Mogensen noted.
And it's true, as we wrote earlier, astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore remained on the ISS due to problems with the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. NASA decided to play it safe, so it returned to Earth without a crew. The Crew-9 ship is supposed to pick up astronauts from the ISS, as Mogensen says, NASA has agreed with SpaceX on this since the summer of 2024, and Musk could not have not known about it. Moreover, the ship has been docked to the ISS since September 2024 and is scheduled to return to Earth in February-March 2025.
After insulting Andreas Mogensen, Musk decided to declare that it was time to deorbit the ISS.
"It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the@Space_Station. It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars," Musk wrote.
In the comments, he was reminded that SpaceX currently has a contract to build an American launch vehicle that should safely deorbit the station in 2030. Musk responded that the decision should be made by Trump, but he recommends "doing it as soon as possible."