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The Department of Defense has proudly announced that two active-duty US military officers will be launching on board SpaceX’s upcoming Crew-10 mission to return NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
Air Force major Nichole Ayers and US Army colonel Anne McClain — both NASA astronauts — will be joining Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov on the mission.
“The Department of Defense is proud to have multiple branches, and two active-duty U.S. military officers represented in this mission,” enthused defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
The high level attention to the military space travelers highlights a renewed interest in the militarization of space under President Donald Trump’s second term. The US Space Force was signed into law by Trump in late 2019, sparking a lively discussion about a “space arms race.”
While it’s not enormously unusual to have active-duty military stationed on board the ISS — according to NASA, 212 of the 360 astronauts it has selected since its inception 66 years ago are from the military — the Pentagon’s announcement has a different ring to it now that Trump is back in the White House.
Trump signed an executive order earlier this year calling for the development of new space-based defenses. But details remain sparse about the viability or possible schedule of such a system.
Further complicating the mission is the subject of Wilmore and Williams, who were stranded on board the ISS since June due to major technical issues plaguing Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
Their return was already scheduled months before Trump was even elected last year, but has been turned into a political rallying cry by the president and his number one henchman, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Musk, in particular, appeared to be incensed when confronted with the fact that the Trump administration wasn’t suddenly swooping in to rescue Wilmore and Williams. Last month, Musk got caught up in a heated exchange on his social media platform with several former astronauts over the topic, ending with him calling them names like a bully in a schoolyard.
At the time, a fuming Musk blamed the Biden administration for getting the pair stuck — claims that were immediately refuted by former NASA administrator Bill Nelson.
Trump appears to have little knowledge of the topic. During a baffling Oval Office press conference, he appeared to make a pass at Williams, arguing she had “wild hair, good, solid hair,” and suggested she and Wilmore might have fallen in love.
The upcoming mission to return Wilmore and Williams has since been delayed due to ground issues affecting the hydraulics system used to control the clamps supporting the upper portion of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The flight is now scheduled for no earlier than Friday evening.
Meanwhile, the future of Trump’s Space Force remains as uncertain as ever. Officials have been calling for a bigger budget for the youngest military arm. On the contrary, many of the administration’s brutal cuts to the government may end up undermining his priorities to militarize outer space, including slashing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, as the Washington Post reports.
The military is already reportedly struggling to keep up with America’s adversaries due to a budget crunch, according to a recent report by the think tank Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
“The cost of the effort to reverse the Air Force’s decline and adequately fund the Space Force will require an increase of at least $45 billion annually, combined,” the report reads. “The fixes must start now, or the United States risks losing the next major war.”
More on the ISS: Trump Suggests That the Stranded Astronauts May Have Fallen in Love
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