While Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore’s situation is unusual, their return trip will be pretty routine, as they were already slated to fly home on a SpaceX capsule as part of a scheduled crew rotation.

Then along comes Musk, with one of the world's loudest microphones, shouting that NASA's astronauts are stranded and that President Trump wants them saved. It's a bombshell thing for the founder of SpaceX, who has become a close advisor to Trump, to say publicly.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday night he had asked Elon Musk's SpaceX to return two NASA astronauts from the International Space Station, who were already scheduled to fly back on a SpaceX capsule in March.