ISS Astronauts Push Back Against Musk’s Call To Crash Station In 2027

Pushing back against the notion they were marooned in space, two astronauts sent to the International Space Station on a defective spacecraft called their ISS sojourn part of a divine plan and hailed the majesty of the spectacular universe.

Space Station aeronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore repeatedly described their celestial odyssey as “amazing” and both said they’ve set their sights on returning to the heavens in times ahead.

Williams, an iconic NASA astronaut who helped construct the ISS 400 kilometers above the Earth, also said she opposes a bombshell proposal fired off by SpaceX founder Elon Musk to crash the Space Station just two years from now – on a kamikaze flight propelled by a SpaceX spacecraft.

“It’s been fascinating – it’s been amazing,” Wilmore said when asked about his latest flight to the ISS, and even about his piloting the Boeing Starliner on its first flight test, when the spacecraft’s faulty propulsion system impelled NASA to send another capsule for their return ride to Earth.

Williams quickly seconded that assessment: “Being in space is just pretty spectacular,” she mused, “and you know having the opportunity to come up here we’re very very lucky.”

When pressed about the extension of their stay on the Space Station due to the impaired Starliner, Wilmore sketched out his expansive view of a divine plan animating the entire universe – from the Creator to his creations, during a captivating Earth-to-orbit press conference that NASA staged with a constellation of leading American and British space journalists.

“I can tell you honestly my feeling on all of this goes back to my faith – it’s bound in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” Wilmore said.

“He is working out his plan and his purposes for his glory throughout all humanity and how that plays into our lives is significant and important.”

“However that plays out,” he added, “I am content because I understand that He’s at work in all things.”

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are both decorated test pilots-turned-spacefarers who have played pivotal roles in assembling the technological wonderland of the ISS – the most advanced orbiting outpost ever created by humanity.

During the meet-up with reporters from The New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS News and the London-based Financial Times, knowing that her comments would be carried across the continents, Williams took a stand against plunging the Station into the icy Antarctic seas in 2027 – a proposition blasted off by SpaceX founder Elon Musk just weeks ago.

“You know we’ve been up here since sort of the beginning,” Williams said. “Butch and I had been part of the construction of the Space Station with the Shuttle flights.”

“So yeah, we’ve seen it grow from just a couple modules to this amazing laboratory that it is right now. And you know I actually was extremely impressed coming up here and seeing how much science is going on.”

“I mean this place is ticking – it’s just really amazing – so I would say we’re actually in our prime right now.”

“We’ve got all the power, all of the facilities up and operating – so I would think that right now is probably not the right time to call it quits.”

“You know we have probably till 2030 in our agreements” with U.S. partners on the ISS, she added.

“We should make the most of this Space Station for our taxpayers and for all of our international partners and hold our obligations and do that world-class science that this laboratory is capable of,” Williams said.

Musk launched his surprise attack on the ISS via Twitter-turned-X, the social media kingdom he now rules over: “It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station. It has served its purpose.”

When asked about his proposed timeline for crashing the ISS, Musk replied it should be deorbited by 2027 – three years earlier than the Station’s partners have agreed to under the ISS Intergovernmental Agreement.

Under that pact – an international treaty – all of the ISS partners, including the European, Japanese, Russian and Canadian space agencies, would have to agree to any change in the timing of decommissioning the ISS, leading space law scholars in the U.K. and the U.S. told me in a series of interviews.

In theory, these four allies could vote to continue operating the Space Station if the U.S. were to secede from the ISS union early, says Svetla Ben-Itzhak, deputy director of the West Space Scholars Program at Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C.

If Washington attempts to strong-arm its allies into allowing the destruction of the $100-billion ISS in two years, these partners are sure to begin debating whether the U.S. and NASA can be trusted to adhere to any other joint space agreements in the future, including those governing missions to the Moon and Mars, says Sarah Lieberman, associate head of the School of Law at the prestigious Canterbury Christ Church University in the U.K.

There are already traces of cracks appearing in NASA’s longstanding space alliance with ESA.

Just weeks after Elon Musk issued his call for the ISS to be despatched to the icy seas around Antarctica by a SpaceX assassin spacecraft on an accelerated timeline, the leaders of the European Space Agency voted to approve a new space manifesto set to guarantee “Europe’s future independence in an ever-shifting geopolitical landscape.”

With autonomy in spaceflight as its central plank, the ESA mission statement declares: “We must have independent access to space on our own terms, whenever and wherever we want to go.”

“One way we are addressing this challenge,” ESA’s leaders pledge, “is by developing advanced reusable space transportation systems. Our future depends on this autonomy.”

Back on the ISS, NASA astronaut Nick Hague, who is also a colonel in the U.S. Space Force, told reporters: “The mission of the Space Station – the scientific exploration – is something that we deeply believe in – its ability to make a positive impact for all of humanity.”

“It’s that belief that allows us to take those risks – you know – the risk of putting yourself on top of a rocket and launching into space, the risk of living on board an outpost that’s orbiting in the cold vacuum of space, and even the risk of developing a new spacecraft to get us to and from the Space Station.”

Colonel Hague has first-hand experience with these intense risks: during a 2018 liftoff to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, the spacecraft suffered “a catastrophic rocket booster malfunction that resulted in the launch abort,” and the capsule plunged back to Earth.

Suni Williams suggested the euphoria and benefits of space exploration far outweigh any sense of danger in speeding around the globe at 28,000 kilometers per hour in an engineered sanctuary.

“You know every day is interesting because we’re up in space and it’s a lot of fun.”

“I think just the fact that we’re living up here in this very unique place gives you an amazing perspective.”

“I don’t want to lose that that spark of inspiration and that perspective when I leave,” she said, “so I’m going to have to bottle it somehow.”

Nick Hague added that the Space Station alliance represents a pinnacle in human civilization of the notion and goals of internationalism: “The International Space Station serves as an example of how you can work together on an international stage and accomplish something greater than any one country can accomplish on their own.”

His description of the Space Station’s astronaut guardians cast them almost as angels: “We’re able to fly above,” he said, “doing good things, discovering things for humanity.”

Asked whether their extended stopover on the ISS has had a negative impact on their future space ambitions, Butch Wilmore suggested just the opposite. “Hey we’re going to the Moon and Mars – that’s what my plan is.”

“I’ll be right beside Butch if that’s the case,” Suni Williams chimed in.

She added that being stationed in the heavens, overseeing the ever-changing Earth, backdropped by endless spirals of stars, changes your view of the entire wonder-filled cosmos.

“Looking out the window we have had some amazing aurorae while we’ve been up here – the sun’s been really active – and it really puts you sort of in your place,” she recounted in a celestial reverie.

“You recognize that the universe is extremely powerful and what little part we are of it – it’s just spectacular.”