NASA made the correct decision to leave astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the International Space Station last summer to await the ship's next crew, but Elon Musk is "not wrong" with his claims that one of his SpaceX Dragon spacecraft could also have been sent to bring them back to Earth, retired Space Station Commander Leroy Chiao said on Newsmax Saturday.
"The decision was made properly," Chiao told Newsmax's "Wake Up America Weekend" about NASA. "I believe that they should not [have returned] on the Starliner, even though we all felt that the Starliner would probably make it back OK. It just wasn't worth the risk. And the Starliner did come back OK."
Wilmore and Williams flew to the International Space Station last June aboard on the Boeing Starliner, but NASA and Boeing identified helium leaks and issues with the spacecraft reaction control thrusters on June 6 as the Starliner approached the Space Station.