The truth is out there.
Just don’t expect to hear it from NASA.
Nearly everyone on Earth seems desperate to know how the true condition of American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams whose 8-day mission to the International Space Station has turned into a nearly 9-month zero-gravity slog.
Back in June, they launched onboard Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule to the ISS, but after the capsule encountered a cascade of thruster issues and helium leaks, NASA decided it was too risky to use the vessel to return them to Earth.
Wilmore and Williams have been stuck ever since. But ask NASA about what’s happening and you’ll hear the same dubious answer over and again – that Wilmore and Williams are not ‘stranded’ and that they are, in fact, grateful to be floating through space, more than 250 miles above their families, for a total of 274 days.
Well, as a former manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who worked inside the space agency for nearly a decade and is now an aerospace industry consultant, I know that NASA’s words have to be parsed carefully.
The agency lost its way a long time ago.
It was stunning to hear NASA’s Wilmore – a former Navy test pilot with three spaceflights under his belt – on Tuesday seemingly confirming SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s claim that the astronauts could have already been rescued had the mission not been blocked by Joe Biden’s White House.
Nearly everyone on Earth seems desperate to know how the true condition of American astronauts Butch Wilmore (right) and Suni Williams (left) whose 8-day mission to the International Space Station has turned into a nearly 9-month zero-gravity slog.
Back in June, Wilmore and Williams launched onboard Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule to the ISS, but after the capsule encountered a cascade of thruster issues and helium leaks, NASA decided it was too risky to use the vessel to return them to Earth.
‘We offered to bring them back early, but the offer was rejected by the Biden administration,’ Musk said Monday on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
The following day, Wilmore appeared to support Musk when asked about the claim, ‘I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual.’
Wilmore’s teenage daughter, Daryn, was even more emphatic in a recently resurfaced social media post from February: ‘There’s a lot of politics, there’s a lot of things that I’m not at liberty to say… but there’s been issues. There’s been negligence. And that’s the reason why this has just kept getting delayed.’
While I don’t claim to know what was said behind closed doors at NASA – and even though I am no fan of Elon Musk who I believe is recklessly slashing away at the federal workforce – I wouldn’t doubt his claims either.
Jeff Nosanov (pictured) is a former manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who worked inside the space agency for nearly a decade and is now an aerospace industry consultant.
No one on NASA’s payroll is permitted to freely speak their mind. But as a former employee of the agency, I can tell you what I believe it to be the truth: our astronauts are at risk and allegations of political corruption at NASA are not to be dismissed.
First, spaceflight is inherently dangerous. Every time a human blasts off on a rocket ship, we are daring the universe to kill them.
And even though Wilmore and Williams may indeed be happy to spend more time than they anticipated in service to their country, they want to return home.
At 274 days in zero-gravity, 59-year-old Williams is nearing the record for the oldest woman to spend the longest stretch in space.
Peggy Whitson spent 289 days in space when she was 56 years old. And Whitson knew what she was getting into.
Williams – while aware of the peril of her mission – likely didn’t expect to be in the running for a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
We know that women face a higher threat of suffering from the effects of osteoporosis, a loss of bone density resulting in weak and brittle bones, than their male counterparts. And older women are at even greater risk.
When Williams returns to Earth, the physical toll that she paid will be studied.
And second, after decades in existence, NASA is adrift.
The agency was established in 1958 to beat the Soviet Union in the space race and it did – putting a man on the moon in 1969. But in the wake of the collapse of the USSR in 1991, NASA struggled to find a new purpose.
‘We offered to bring them back early, but the offer was rejected by the Biden administration,’ Musk said of the stranded astronauts on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Consider that the Apollo 17 mission marked the last moon landing in 1972. By 1992, America sent astronauts into Earth orbit. In 1998, construction of the International Space Station began – and it was completed in 2011. But now in 2025, the US sends astronauts to the ISS but struggles to get them home. Our horizons have shrunk.
The problem is that NASA has become more concerned with granting federal contracts than boldly pursuing progress in manned spaceflight.
NASA’s main contractor Boeing has also suffered in this aerospace era of burgeoning budgets and mediocracy.
All Americans are familiar with the problems plaguing Boeing’s commercial airliners. After a door-plug blew off a Boeing 737 Max jetliner during an Alaska Airlines flight in January 2024, at least 20 whistleblowers came forward to allege that the aerospace giant was cutting corners on safety to rush out as many aircraft as possible.
In March, Boeing’s CEO David Calhoun resigned along with several top executives.
Is it any surprise then that Boeing’s manufacturing problems have extended to its aerospace division as well.
In June 2023, Boeing delayed the launch of the first Starliner capsule – its first to carry humans into space – because of the discovery of hundreds of feet of flammable adhesive tape used to secure the craft’s wiring.
Wilmore appeared to support Musk when asked about his claim, ‘I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says, is absolutely factual.’ (Pictured: Musk and Trump attend a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in November).
Last August when NASA decided the Starliner capsule was too unsafe to return to Earth with human onboard, Boeing executives in the meeting reportedly exploded.
‘Boeing was convinced that the Starliner was in good enough condition to bring the astronauts home, and NASA disagreed. Strongly disagreed,’ an anonymous NASA executive said at the time. ‘The thinking around here was that Boeing was being wildly irresponsible.’
That’s chilling.
Though still, there was hesitation inside NASA to cut Boeing loose.
After all, it was NASA who signed a $4.2 billion contract with Boeing to fund Starliner’s development and the mission that left Williams and Wilmore stuck on the ISS.
Now, after numerous delays and far too much obfuscation, Musk has been tasked with bringing our astronauts home.
SpaceX is preparing to launch its new Dragon capsule in about two weeks to the ISS. Perhaps, in the end we’ll have the best case scenario – Wilmore and Williams will be returned to their families as heroes and the truth will finally come out.
