For those of us who have closely followed the story of Wilmore and Williams over the last nine months—and Ars Technica has had its share of exclusive stories about this long and strange saga—the final weeks before the landing have seen it take a disturbing turn.

In February, President Trump and the chief executive of SpaceX, Elon Musk, began to say that the two astronauts were "stranded" in space because the Biden administration did not want to bring them home. "They got left in space," Trump said.

"They were left up there for political reasons," Musk concluded.

Just what those political reasons were never specified. But the basic message was clear: Biden, bad; Trump, good.

The reality is that NASA set a plan for the return of Wilmore and Williams last August. The spacecraft that brought them back to Earth on Tuesday safely docked to the space station in September. They could have come home at any time since. NASA—not the Biden administration, which all of my reporting indicates was not involved in any decision-making—decided the best and safest option was to keep Wilmore and Williams in orbit until early this year. Musk knew this plan. He had to sign off on it. Senior NASA officials earlier this month confirmed, publicly and on the record, that the decision was made by the space agency in the best interests of the International Space Station Program. Not for political reasons.

And still, the lies came.

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[–] burble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 hours ago

Facts should be non partisan. What a dumb fucking timeline.

[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 29 points 15 hours ago

“Can a scientific government agency remain nonpartisan when the government is run by idiots who don’t believe in science and demand absolute partisanship?” The question basically answers itself.

[–] ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip 27 points 16 hours ago

I was watching the stream when the splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico and the NASA commentator said the stupid MAGA version of the name.

I just can't even...

[–] anindefinitearticle@sh.itjust.works 12 points 15 hours ago

Being nonpartisan depends on being independent.

When they lose their ability to independently communicate their truth over a flood of lies, they are not being partisan to defend themselves and the truth.

[–] Bademantel@lemmy.world 16 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

I'd like NASA to speak up but it's of course in their best financial interest to remain nonpartisan. Why should they alienate the Republicans and risk funding to expose an obvious lie? What good would it do? Many Americans don't care about the truth or are unable to grasp it, even when presented with facts.

[–] AtomicHotSauce@lemmy.world 11 points 15 hours ago

These fucking clowns won’t stop until there’s no reality or truth left to be had. And there are enough dumb bastards in this country who believe their shit to make it happen pretty fast.

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 7 points 15 hours ago

NASA is a federal agency dependent on congressional funding and also technically under the executive branch. Unfortunately, they get to do what the executive branch says or get fired, and the executive branch will find someone else to do whatever it is they want.

[–] whaleiam@lemm.ee -4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

They shouldn’t musks rockets suck ass. Can’t even compete with the first rockets ever developed by nasa, despite all the advances in tech, can’t even carry 1/3 of the weight, not to mention the many rockets exploded. Billions of tax money wasted.

[–] burble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 hours ago

Ehhh, Falcon is still an absolute champ. But yeah, Starship development is not going according to plan and nobody will fly on it anytime soon.