Kamala Harris’ ambitions hold astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams hostage

Rotten luck for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams: Not only have a series of poor decisions by NASA and Boeing leadership got them stuck in space, but now they’re being held hostage by Kamala Harris’ political ambitions.

That’s right: The vice president chairs the National Space Council, which is supposed to give NASA its direction — which means she already shares blame for this mess, and is best served by just letting the “castaways” rot until after Election Day.

Wilmore and Williams were supposed to be in space only for eight days after their launch from Earth on June 5, but their Boeing-built spacecraft, the Starliner, malfunctioned — leaving them trapped on the International Space Station.

NASA and Boeing have hemmed and hawed for two months about how to bring the astronauts home, floating the idea of them traveling back with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon next February, while insisting the Starliner could get the explorers home if absolutely necessary.

One thing is clear.

Even if NASA comes up with some other answer, those astronauts won’t come home before November.

Because Harris chairs the National Space Council: The buck stops with her, but she has an election to win.

She surely fears the bad press of a space disaster.

Sticking Williams and Wilmore back on the glitched Starliner would be too much of a risk to her presidential prospects.

And then someone might notice just how asleep at the wheel she’s been as head of NSC.

Harris has only chaired three public Space Council meetings, the latest last December, where she “spoke at the start of that meeting but left immediately thereafter, leaving an adviser to chair the meeting,” according to SpaceNews.

Her predecessor, Vice President Mike Pence, chaired eight NSC meetings in the four Trump years.

And her input was irrelevant to issues like building a functional, reliable space program. For example: At that Dec. 20, 2023, she announced three priorities for space, starting with “tackling the climate crisis.”

Huh?

Just as with her “work” as border czar, Kamala’s been phoning it in as Space Council chief.

Is there anything she touches that doesn’t turn into a crisis?

Whenever Harris talks about what she’ll do “on Day One” as president, remember her pathetic record as vice president.

Whether it’s millions of illegal migrants spread across the nation or two astronauts stranded in space, her results prove she doesn’t deserve a promotion; she needs to be fired.