A new scandal has erupted over Vice President Kamala Harris’ role as chair of the National Space Council. Harris, in the middle of the 2024 presidential campaign, is suddenly facing mounting criticism over two American astronauts stranded aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, a watchdog group, has launched a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) probe into NASA, seeking documents related to Harris’ role in leaving astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams trapped in orbit for several months longer than planned.
Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project, has raised concerns about potential political interference in the decision-making process.
“This looks like to me and other experts that Kamala Harris, the space czar, chose politics over our astronauts,” Howell told Fox News Digital. “It’s very bizarre that the mainstream media seems not to care about this massive scandal. We’re going to continue to investigate this and get Americans the answers they deserve.”
The FOIA request seeks communications between NASA political appointees, the White House, and Vice President Harris’s office, as well as outgoing emails to Harris’s presidential campaign.
The probe focuses on correspondence from NASA chief of staff Bale Dalton III, Associate Administrator James Free, and five other senior officials, along with communications between NASA and Boeing, the manufacturer of the Starliner capsule that transported the astronauts to the ISS.
Concerns over the safety of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which experienced propulsion issues and elemental leaks, has stranded the astronauts. Despite these concerns, Boeing officials stated in August, “We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis and reviews to affirm the spacecraft’s safe undocking and landing capabilities. Our confidence is based on this abundance of valuable testing from Boeing and NASA.”
Howell has also criticized recent NASA hires under Harris’s leadership, suggesting a focus on diversity rather than technical expertise.
“Space is serious business. Kamala Harris obviously has no business running the National Space Council,” he stated. “Part of the reason they’re lost in space is that our NASA has been turned into another woke-DEI, dismal excuse for a government agency.”
In response to these allegations, a NASA spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Harris and National Space Council staff “received frequent updates on the Starliner Crewed Flight Test.”
“While the National Space Council works closely with civil, national security, commercial, and international partners to advance the nation’s space priorities, it does not make operational spaceflight safety recommendations or decisions,” they claimed.
Despite the political controversy, the astronauts say they are taking being stranded in space in stride. Williams was quoted as saying, “I love being in space. This is my happy place.”
Wilmore is missing his daughter’s final year of high school, but has requested an absentee ballot to vote from orbit.