President Donald Trump took to social media this week to announce he had directed SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to “go get” two NASA astronauts who have been on a protracted stay at the International Space Station after their Boeing Starliner mission, which launched in June and was expected to last about eight days, ran into multiple technical issues.

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.