New
Lost In Space
The story of stranded NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore deserves to be much better known. Williams and Wilmore have been stuck in the International Space Station since June 2024, nine months ago. They were scheduled to be in the space station for just eight days. One can only imagine the horror of being stranded in space for nine months, with no imminent hope of rescue.
Boeing equipment that was supposed to bring them home failed, and NASA apparently was unable to organize a rescue. It is not clear why not, since NASA has collaborated with SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, a number of times. Elon himself has suggested that the astronauts were abandoned by the Biden administration for political reasons. Be that as it may, if Williams and Wilmore had been marooned while a Republican was president, it would have been a huge news story–definitive evidence of Republican incompetence. There would have been nightly news shows, “Stranded In Space: Day 143,” and so on.
Similarly, if a Democratic president had rescued astronauts who had been marooned by a Republican administration, rejoicing would have been universal. In this case, reaction has been either muted or nonexistent. The New York Times treated the whole affair in a ho-hum manner, and many news outlets haven’t covered it at all.
But the astronauts themselves know better, and have not hesitated to express their appreciation to the people responsible for rescuing them:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 16, 2025
Over the last several decades, the business of journalism has undergone a profound transformation. Journalists used to ask, What is a good story? What will interest our readers or viewers? What will shed light on current events? No longer. Now, journalists ask, What will make the Democratic Party look bad? Because anything that makes the Democratic Party look bad is not a story.
That is why we haven’t heard a lot about the terrifying sojourn in space of Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore. Their plight reflects the utter incompetence of the Joe Biden administration. Happily, that administration is now in the dustbin of history. Welcome home, Sunita and Butch.
