Cue the “Star Wars” theme and the opening crawl: “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away …”
That’s what noncontroversial space travel seems like this week after the return to Earth of two astronauts following an unplanned extended stay at the International Space Station.
Unfortunately, the return of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore brought with it the claim by President Donald Trump and SpaceX creator Elon Musk that former President Joe Biden declined an earlier return home for the pair for “political reasons.” NASA and other space experts, and the astronauts themselves, dispute the claim.
We’re trying to get our head around why Biden would have declined an earlier trip home, unless it was that then-Trump supporter Musk would get some credit because of the help of SpaceX during the presidential election. But that would’ve been a one-day story and was not likely to swap many votes from Biden’s proxy, Vice President Kamala Harris, to Trump.