AILSA CHANG, HOST:
So imagine this - you go on a work trip that's supposed to last a week, and you end up being there for nine months. And also, that work trip, it's in outer space. OK, this may sound a little nuts, but that is exactly what happened to two American astronauts. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have finally landed after being on the International Space Station since last summer.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And splashdown. Crew-9 back on Earth.
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CHANG: Their visit and return have become political, with President Trump and Elon Musk claiming that the astronauts were deliberately stranded by the Biden administration. NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel has been tracking this space opera and joins us now with more. Hi, Geoff.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, what a saga it has been. Tell us more about tonight's return.
BRUMFIEL: Yeah, well, the astronauts traveled home aboard a capsule built by Elon Musk's company, SpaceX. It reentered Earth's atmosphere, flew through the air like a comet, then deployed its parachutes and landed off the Gulf Coast off of Florida where the astronauts - Williams, Wilmore, another astronaut named Nick Hague and a Russian cosmonaut - were greeted actually by a pod of dolphins. It was pretty cute to watch.
CHANG: Wow, so cool.
BRUMFIEL: They swam around the capsule. And then they were later retrieved by SpaceX employees aboard a ship.
CHANG: (Laughter) Less exciting than the dolphins, maybe, but I am so glad everyone has returned home safely. Can you just explain for us - why were the two astronauts in space for so long?
BRUMFIEL: It all started in June of last year when they launched to space aboard an experimental capsule built by Boeing. That capsule had problems with its thrusters as it approached the station. So NASA had to decide what to do, and in the end, they sent the Boeing capsule home empty and left Williams and Wilmore as part of the regular space station crew until they could get a ride home, which turned out to be about 285 days after they got there.
CHANG: Wow. And how unusual is it for astronauts to be in space for that long?
BRUMFIEL: You know, I spoke to Scott Kelly, a retired astronaut who spent nearly a year aboard the station. He thought this was an entirely reasonable call.
SCOTT KELLY: What made the most sense was to just leave Butch and Suni up there. I mean, they're professionals.
BRUMFIEL: You know, they were originally supposed to be up for about a week, though, so this ended up being a narrative about being stuck in space. It kind of depends what you mean by stuck because they did always have a way to get home.
KELLY: They had a SpaceX Dragon there as an emergency lifeboat to bring them back at any time they needed to.
CHANG: (Laughter) I want a dragon. OK, so the astronauts got reassigned to the space station. That's how this whole saga started. Can you just tell us how did Trump and Musk amplify the story about how they got stuck?
BRUMFIEL: Well, earlier this year, Trump and Musk claimed that not only were the astronauts stuck, they were deliberately stranded by the Biden administration. They've repeated that again and again. Here's Musk speaking in an interview with Texas Senator Ted Cruz released yesterday.
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ELON MUSK: It wasn't really even a NASA decision. It was just that the Biden White House did not want to have someone who was pro-Trump rescuing astronauts right before the election.
BRUMFIEL: Numerous NASA officials have said that claim just isn't true, that there were a number of technical and budgetary reasons to leave Williams and Wilmore on board to help run the station.
CHANG: OK. And how are the astronauts doing back on Earth now?
BRUMFIEL: They couldn't have asked for a nicer day to land, and, you know, it was all smiles, thumbs-up and waves as they came out of their capsule. They're doing great, and they seem to be very happy to be back home.
CHANG: That's so good to hear. That is NPR's Geoff Brumfiel. Thank you so much, Geoff.
BRUMFIEL: Thank you, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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