Elon Musk's attempt to blame the Biden administration for why the pair of astronauts aboard the International Space Station have had to stay even longer in orbit is blowing up in his face again.In a Fox News interview alongside president Donald Trump last month, Musk boldly claimed that Joe Biden opted to leave the NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, in space for "political reasons," rather than bring them home sooner. Williams and Wilmore have been aboard the ISS for eight months, after the spacecraft that ferried them there, Boeing's Starliner, malfunctioned badly.Following the interview, a European astronaut and ISS veteran called Musk's claims a "lie." In response, the billionaire special government employee threw a tantrum, calling the astronaut a slur and doubling down on his previous claims about Biden's decision."SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago," Musk fumed. "I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused."Now, the stranded astronauts themselves have weighed in albeit while trying to stay as apolitical as possible and they say they've never heard of any such plans, theWashington Post reports.In a press conference broadcasted from the ISS, Wilmore told reporters that he and Williams received "no information" about Musk's supposed offer of an earlier return."What was offered, what was not offered, who it was offered to, how that process went that's information that we simply don't have," Wilmore said, as quoted by WaPo.Even Bill Nelson, who served as NASA administrator under Biden, says it's the first he's hearing of Musk's plans, he told the newspaper in an interview."It certainly did not come to my attention," Nelson told WaPo. "There was no discussion of that whatsoever. Maybe he [Elon Musk] sent a message to some lower-level person."Nelson said the agency's decision was to use SpaceX's Crew Dragon, instead of Boeing's Starliner, to return Williams and Wilmore. A Dragon capsule is currently docked at the ISS, but will not depart until another one of the SpaceX vehicles brings four fresh crew members to replace the outgoing astronauts.That mission, Crew-10, was originally slated for February but was pushed back to this month to buy engineers additional time to prepare the vehicle. The plan is to now use a SpaceX capsule that has already flown instead of prepping a brand new one.Conflicting accounts aside, Musk's mythical plan to rescue the astronauts sooner wouldn't have worked in NASA's logistical and financial position at the time."We didn't have the money to bring an additional Dragon to go up just for them, but we had another rotation coming up fairly soon," Nelson told WaPo.Shocker, but it's sure sounding like Musk was fibbing about this whole saga. It can't be overlooked that the world's richest man has an ugly history of throwing a fit when he doesn't get to be the hero. He once baselessly slandered a British diver who helped rescue children trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand a "pedo" after the diver's courageous acts foiled Musk's harebrained proposal to use a mini-submarine to save the day.More on space: SpaceX Having Trouble Getting Starship Launched Again After ExplosionShare This Article