The Delayed Return of U.S. Astronauts

This week, U.S. astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore touched down off the coast of Florida after spending nine months at the International Space Station. They were originally supposed to be on a mission lasting a mere eight days. Their delayed homecoming sparked competing claims about the actions of the Trump and Biden administrations in bringing them back to Earth.

Sarah Usandivaras, an undergraduate fellow at FactCheck.org, and Deputy Director Robert Farley explained what we know about the mission and what President Donald Trump, White House adviser Elon Musk, NASA officials and the astronauts themselves had said about it. 

Musk, whose SpaceX company aided the astronauts’ return, said he had offered last year to bring the two astronauts home much sooner but the Biden administration declined for “political reasons.” NASA and space experts, including the two astronauts themselves, dispute that the decision was based on politics. In a March 4 press conference, NASA officials cited safety, budget concerns and a desire to keep a crew on the space station as reasons behind the extended stay.

Trump, meanwhile, has claimed that he expedited the return of the astronauts after making a personal appeal to Musk. As Sarah and Rob explained, the mission to return them has been in the works since late last summer, and NASA officials said the president's involvement, while adding "energy to the conversation," hadn't expedited the astronauts' return. 

Williams and Wilmore left Earth on June 5, 2024, aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on a mission to evaluate if the spacecraft could be used for regular astronaut rotation missions. However, the Starliner experienced multiple helium leaks soon after liftoff and later problems with the thrusters, causing NASA to send the Starliner back to Earth empty. 

In August 2024, NASA announced that it would be using SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to bring back the astronauts in February 2025, when they could be replaced by another crew. Those replacements ended up arriving at the space station on March 16.

For more, read Sarah and Rob's full story: "The Facts Behind the Delayed Return of U.S. Astronauts."

Reader: Is it true that the wealthiest Americans pay 90% of the taxes?

FactCheck.org Director Lori Robertson: We recently wrote about this issue -- at least in terms of federal income taxes -- in a story about competing claims on who benefits from extending the individual income tax provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. (Those provisions are set to expire at the end of this year.)

Kent Smetters, a professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told us that “under current law, the top 10% of the income distribution pays about 70% of all federal taxes.”

In November, the Tax Foundation wrote about data from the Internal Revenue Service about tax year 2022. Those figures show that the top 10% of earners paid 72% of all federal income taxes, and the top 25% of earners paid 87.2% of federal income taxes. 

"The only tax analyzed here is the federal individual income tax, which is responsible for more than 25 percent of the nation’s taxes paid (at all levels of government)," the Tax Foundation wrote. "Federal income taxes are much more progressive than federal payroll taxes, which are responsible for about 20 percent of all taxes paid (at all levels of government), and are more progressive than most state and local taxes."

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• Measles Is Harmful, Contrary to Flimsy Social Media Claims of Long-Term Benefits: Measles is an extremely contagious vaccine-preventable disease that can lead to death or disability. It also wipes out immune memory for several years after an infection. As an outbreak in Texas continues to expand, social media posts have claimed without sufficient support that measles infections are beneficial later in life against cancer and other diseases, an idea health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has echoed.
   
• Study Focused on Feminine Hygiene Products, Not Transgender Men: The Department of Agriculture announced the cancellation of a $600,000 grant to study the development of feminine hygiene products made of natural fibers. The USDA, Department of Government Efficiency and social media posts misleadingly claimed the study was of “menstrual cycles in transgender men.” The university behind the study said it was focused on making safer products to “benefit all biological women.”

• El empleo a tiempo completo aumentó bajo Biden, al contrario de lo que afirmó Rick Scott: Como informamos en enero, el presidente Donald Trump heredó una economía resiliente que experimentaba un crecimiento continuo en el empleo, incluyendo un aumento en las personas trabajando a tiempo completo. Sin embargo, el senador republicano Rick Scott recientemente pintó un panorama muy diferente, calificando la economía previa a Trump como “horrible” y afirmando falsamente que el empleo a tiempo completo estuvo “cayendo durante casi todo el gobierno de Biden”.
   
• El sarampión es perjudicial, al contrario de afirmaciones sobre supuestos beneficios a largo plazo: El sarampión es una enfermedad extremadamente contagiosa y prevenible con una vacuna, que puede llevar a la muerte o discapacidad. La enfermedad puede además borrar la memoria inmunológica por varios años. Mientras un brote en Texas continúa expandiéndose, publicaciones en redes sociales han afirmado sin suficiente respaldo que las infecciones por sarampión son beneficiosas en el transcurso de la vida para luchar contra el cáncer y otras enfermedades, una idea que el secretario de salud Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ha repetido.