Musk claims that he has made an offer directly to senior officials in the Biden administration. We cannot verify that, but it seems clear that the Biden administration has never communicated such an offer to officials at a lower level within NASA, who have made their decision for technical reasons.
“I think you know that we work for NASA, and we worked together with NASA to do what we think was the right thing,” replied the SpaceXofficial, Gerstensmaier,. “You know, we were willing to support in any way that they thought was the right way to support. They came up with the option you heard today, and we support that option.”
Has Trump told NASA to speed up Butch and Suni's return?
At the end of last year, the crew 9 mission would return in mid-February. However, there was a battery problem with a new tarragon spacecraft that would be used to fly crew 10 in a job to fly the track. As a result, NASA announced on December 17 that the return of the crew was delayed at the end of March or the beginning of April.
Then, on 11 February, NASA announced that the launch of Crew 10 was brought forward until March 12. This was a few weeks earlier than planned, and it was possible because NASA and SpaceX decided to exchange Dragon Capsules, using a previously flown vehicle – Crew Dragon – Crew Dragon – Crew Dragon – Crew Dragon – Crew Dragon Endurance– For crew 10.
So was this change to accelerate the return of Wilmore and William's politically driven?
The decision to exchange Endurance Was made at the end of January, Stich said, and this allowed the launch date to be moved ahead. Asked if political pressure was a reason, Stich said it wasn't. “It was really driven by many other factors, and we looked at this before some of those statements were made by the president and Mr. Musk,” he said.
Bowersox added that this was correct, but also said that NASA appreciated the president's interest in the Space program.
“I can verify that Steve has spoken about how we might have to juggle the flights and to switch from capsules a good month before there was a discussion outside of NASA, but the interest of the president certainly added energy to the conversation,” Bowersox said.
