Trump tells stranded astronauts were coming up to get you, teases SpaceX mission in two weeks

WASHINGTON — President Trump told a pair of astronauts stranded aboard the International Space Station for nearly a year that “we’re coming up to get you,” as Elon Musk is apparently preparing to launch a SpaceX capsule in about two weeks.Trump, 78, mused Thursday about the possibility of personally launching a rescue team into orbit to help bring astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth — and blasted former President Joe Biden for their eight-day mission stretching to nine months and counting.“Biden left them up there,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.“We have two astronauts that are stuck in space.

I have asked Elon, I said, ‘Do me a favor.Can you get them out?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ He is preparing to go up, I think in two weeks.”The president said that “Biden was embarrassed by what happened, and he said, ‘leave them up there.’ I would have said, ‘If you’re embarrassed, you got to get them out.’ Elon is right now preparing a ship to go up and get them.”During an exchange with Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy, Trump said that his message to Wilmore and Williams was: “We love you, and we’re coming up to get you, and you shouldn’t have been up there so long.”“The most incompetent president in our history has allowed that to happen to you, but this president won’t let it happen,” Trump added.“They’ve been left up there — I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don’t know,” he mused.

“But they’ve been left up there.Think of it.

And I see the woman with the wild hair, good, solid hair she’s got.There’s no kidding, there’s no games with her hair.”The two astronauts were stranded in June when an issue was found with Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which returned without them.Musk’s SpaceX in September launched a Crew Dragon capsule to rescue the pair and it docked at the space station, but NASA opted to stall its return.NASA said in December the two ...