In June 2024, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft for what was intended to be an eight-day test mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Technical issues with Starliner, including helium leaks and thruster failures, extended their stay to over nine months, with their return finally occurring on March 18, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. This prolonged ordeal has sparked debates about NASA’s operational capabilities, with some critics pointing to its spending on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs as a factor in its inability to independently rescue the astronauts, necessitating intervention by private industry—specifically Elon Musk’s SpaceX. While the narrative is compelling, a closer examination reveals a more complex story of budget priorities, bureaucratic inertia, and the evolving role of commercial spaceflight.
NASA’s budget has long been a point of contention. For fiscal year 2025, the agency’s funding hovers around $25 billion, supporting a wide range of missions from planetary exploration to human spaceflight. Within this, a small but notable portion has been allocated to DEI initiatives. Reports suggest that between 2021 and 2024, NASA spent approximately $13 million on DEI-related programs—an amount equivalent to roughly one ten-thousandth of its total spending over that period. These efforts, aimed at fostering an inclusive workforce and addressing historical inequities, included training, outreach, and administrative offices like the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) branch. Critics argue that this expenditure diverted resources from core operational priorities, such as ensuring robust spacecraft capabilities or contingency plans for stranded astronauts.
The Wilmore-Williams saga provides a focal point for this critique. When Starliner encountered problems, NASA deemed it unsafe for return and opted to integrate the astronauts into the ISS crew rotation, relying on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon—a spacecraft already scheduled for routine missions—to bring them home. NASA officials maintained that maintaining ISS staffing levels was critical and that sending a dedicated rescue mission was neither budgeted nor operationally necessary. Each Crew Dragon flight costs between $100 million and $150 million, a significant expense for an agency facing flat budgets and competing demands. Yet, the optics of two astronauts “stranded” for months fueled speculation that NASA’s focus on non-mission-critical programs like DEI had left it unprepared.
Elon Musk and SpaceX emerged as pivotal players in this narrative. Musk, a vocal advocate for efficiency and a close advisor to President Donald Trump as of early 2025, claimed he offered a dedicated Dragon rescue mission in 2024, only to be rebuffed by the Biden administration—allegedly for political reasons tied to the election cycle. While NASA and former Administrator Bill Nelson denied receiving such an offer, the successful return of Wilmore and Williams aboard a SpaceX capsule on March 18, 2025, bolstered Musk’s image as a private-sector savior. President Trump capitalized on this, touting the rescue as a “promise kept,” despite evidence that NASA had planned the Crew-9 return timeline since August 2024, well before his January 2025 directive to Musk.
So, did NASA’s DEI spending truly hamstring its ability to rescue the astronauts, forcing reliance on SpaceX? The numbers suggest otherwise. At $13 million over three years, DEI costs are a drop in the bucket compared to the billions allocated to human spaceflight programs like Artemis or the ISS. The Crew Dragon program itself, part of NASA’s Commercial Crew initiative, represents a $2.6 billion investment in SpaceX since 2014, dwarfing DEI expenditures. The real issue lies not in DEI’s cost but in NASA’s broader strategic and budgetary constraints. The agency has leaned heavily on commercial partners since retiring the Space Shuttle in 2011, a shift driven by cost-saving goals rather than DEI priorities. Boeing’s Starliner, funded with $4.2 billion from NASA, was meant to complement SpaceX but faltered due to technical setbacks—a failure of execution, not a misallocation to diversity programs.
Critics might still argue that any dollar spent on DEI is a dollar not spent on spacecraft redundancy or emergency planning. This view assumes a zero-sum game, ignoring the possibility that DEI could enhance workforce morale or attract talent in a competitive field. However, the lack of transparency around DEI’s tangible benefits—beyond symbolic gestures—leaves it vulnerable to scrutiny. NASA’s decision in early 2025 to shutter its DEIA office, along with 23 layoffs mandated by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Musk, signals a shift away from such programs. Yet, this move came after the astronauts’ predicament was resolved, suggesting it was a political reaction rather than a direct fix.
The reliance on SpaceX also reflects a broader trend: private industry’s growing dominance in spaceflight. SpaceX has completed 10 operational crewed missions for NASA since 2020, plus five private flights, showcasing reliability that Boeing has yet to match. Musk’s company benefits from NASA contracts—$22 billion in total federal awards—while pushing ambitious goals like Mars colonization. This symbiosis raises questions about NASA’s role. Is it an innovator or a customer? The Wilmore-Williams case suggests the latter, with SpaceX filling gaps NASA couldn’t or wouldn’t address independently. Former astronaut Charles Bolden critiqued Musk’s influence, arguing that if he misled Trump into framing the return as a last-minute rescue, it highlights SpaceX’s outsized sway over public perception.
Skeptics of the DEI critique point to operational realities. Astronauts often stay on the ISS for extended periods—six months is standard—and Wilmore himself dismissed claims of abandonment, noting ample supplies and routine contingency planning. The Starliner failure was a Boeing issue, not a NASA-DEI one. Moreover, accelerating the Crew-10 launch from late March to mid-March, as Trump and Musk urged, shaved only weeks off the timeline—hardly evidence of a crippled agency. NASA’s decision-making, while cautious, prioritized safety and existing schedules over flashy heroics.
Pinning NASA’s reliance on SpaceX to rescue Wilmore and Williams on DEI spending oversimplifies a multifaceted issue. The $13 million spent on DEI pales beside the billions funneled into commercial partnerships and the systemic challenges of an agency stretched thin. Musk’s SpaceX stepped in not because NASA was distracted by diversity but because it was already integrated into NASA’s framework—a framework born of necessity, not neglect. The episode underscores a shifting landscape where private industry, led by figures like Musk, increasingly drives space exploration. Whether this is a triumph of innovation or a cautionary tale of dependency remains an open question. For now, the astronauts are home, and the debate over NASA’s priorities—DEI or otherwise—continues to orbit the public consciousness.
Editorial comments expressed in this column are the sole opinion of the writer.
