At the APEC summit in Peru, President Joe Biden made a lighthearted comment about possibly being sent to space to rescue two NASA astronauts stranded aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Speaking with Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, Biden quipped about how his wife jokes about sending him to space when he misbehaves. “Every time my wife thinks I’m getting out of hand, she says, ‘I’m going to call [NASA Administrator] Bill Nelson and have him send you to space,’” Biden joked. “And I’m a little concerned he may want to send me to space because we got to get some folks back home!”
The joke came in the context of a situation involving veteran astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stranded aboard the ISS for nearly seven months. The astronauts, originally scheduled for an eight-day mission aboard Boeing’s Starliner, have been unable to return due to a technical issue with the spacecraft, which made a trip back without them. Their return is now planned for February, when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule will finally bring them home.
Biden’s remarks also touched on the US-Peru space collaboration, as Peru recently signed the US-led Artemis Accords on space exploration. He also acknowledged the country’s new agreement with the US for research rockets. However, his playful comments about the stranded astronauts came just after troubling reports regarding a leak on the ISS, which has raised concerns about the safety of the station.
The leak on the ISS has become a point of contention between NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency. The leak, first detected in 2019, is in a module controlled by Russia and has been releasing air at a rate of 1.7 kilograms per day. Former NASA astronaut Bob Cabana recently expressed concerns about the structural integrity of the module, fearing a catastrophic failure. However, the Russian team disagrees, stating they do not believe the leak poses a significant threat of catastrophic disintegration. Despite these differing views, both teams continue efforts to find and seal the leaks, as the situation remains unresolved.
Biden’s joke, while lighthearted, highlights the ongoing struggles facing space agencies as they deal with complex technical challenges both on the ISS and with the stranded astronauts.
