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 adviser to Trump, to say publicly.

NASA has confirmed its approach to bringing home two US astronauts currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS) "as soon as practical," despite US President Donald Trump suggesting he would expedite the process through direct talks with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.