Keith’s note: According to “NASA reveals astronauts’ return ‘would not have happened’ without Trump’s intervention” on Fox “This is a huge win for the Trump administration. And it would not have happened without President Trump’s intervention [NASA spokeswoman Bethany] Stevens said.” Weirdly, Janet Petro is quoted by NASA the other day as saying “Per President Trump’s direction, NASA and SpaceX worked diligently to pull the schedule a month earlier”. Easy fact check: Plans were announced on 24 Aug 2024 – by NASA – before Trump was even elected: “Wilmore and Williams will continue their work formally as part of the Expedition 71/72 crew through February 2025. They will fly home aboard a Dragon spacecraft with two other crew members assigned to the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission.” A few week’s additional delays were due to SpaceX processing slips for the Dragon spacecraft. Just sayin’.

Keith’s note: I was just on CNN talking about the return of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to planet Earth after their excellent adventure in space. [Audio]

Keith’s note: Butch and Suni are back on planet Earth. I just did 20 minutes of color commentary with my friends at Bloomberg TV. Lots of questions regarding political claims made about the whole “stuck in space” thing and who offered what to whom and when. I tried to get into what goes into planning these complicated missions to distant, potentially hazardous places. Having been on multiple expeditions myself to remote places in the arctic and the Himalayas I tried to offer some personal experience regarding the actual logistical mindset that goes into planning things such as missions to the space station. Everyone at NASA and SpaceX did what they needed to do to make the best of this unexpected situation. Ad Astra y’all. [Audio]