Watchdog group sues NASA over emails with ‘space czar’ Harris and Boeing while astronauts are in orbit

A conservative watchdog group has sued the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), demanding documents relating to the situation that caused two American astronauts to be stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) for several months.

The executive director of the Oversight Project told Fox News Digital on Monday that he and his group have been seeking legal access to email exchanges between NASA appointees and the White House, including access to the office of Vice President Harris, who also serves as chair of the National Space Council.

The motion, by Mike Howell, head of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, also calls for emails to be sent to Harris’ presidential campaign. Just as Harris was tasked with mitigating the causes of illegal immigration as the so-called border czar, her role as vice president makes her essentially the country’s top space policy adviser on the issue.

“It seems to me and other experts that Kamala Harris, the queen of space, chose politics over our astronauts,” Howell said, suggesting there may have been a political calculation against bringing astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams home as planned.

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“It is very strange that the mainstream media seems so unconcerned about this massive scandal. We will continue to investigate and provide the American people with the answers they deserve.”

The National Space Council (NSpC) was originally organized in a slightly different way under former President George H. W. Bush before being disbanded and reorganized under former President Trump.

At the 2018 NSpC, Trump personally unveiled the first new branch of the military in decades: the U.S. Space Force.

In its request, the Oversight Project seeks to compel NASA to release correspondence from the agency’s chief of staff, Bale Dalton III, Associate Administrator James Free, and five other senior officials. It also seeks communications between NASA and officials in the commercial crew program at Boeing, the company that made the Starliner capsule that took Wilmore and Williams to the ISS this summer.

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A source close to the matter pointed to the established duties of the NSpC chair, outlined by Trump in a 2021 executive order establishing the council.

“The Chairman will serve as the principal advisor to the President on national space policy and strategy…” reads the first resolution.

The source said the NSpC chairman therefore has substantive advisory authority over NASA’s decision-making.

During an August press conference, a NASA official said there was “a minor disagreement about the level of risk” between the agency and Boeing after the capsule suffered propulsion problems and elemental leaks. The Starliner ultimately returned safely to Earth unmanned on Sept. 7.

A few weeks earlier, Boeing officials said in a statement that they remained confident in Starliner’s ability to return safely with a crew on board: “We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis, and reviews to confirm the safe undocking and landing of the spacecraft. Our confidence is based on this wealth of valuable testing conducted by Boeing and NASA.”

“This data also supports the root cause assessment of the helium and engine issues and the rationale for flying Starliner and returning its crew to Earth,” the statement said.

On X, formerly Twitter, Howell posted the biographies of several people who worked at NASA while Harris was running the NSpC, including a veteran of New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, another from the Jacksonville Symphony, and someone whose “academic” major was “political science.”

“Space is serious business. Kamala Harris clearly has no business running the National Space Council… They’re lost in space right now. Partly because our NASA has been transformed into another woke DEI, dismal excuse for a government agency,” he said.

Howell also provided a copy of a document outlining the “strategic goals” of the “NASA DEIA Strategic Plan.”

“The fact is, Vice President Kamala Harris’s track record as Border Czar is as abysmal as her track record as Space Czar,” Howell said Monday.

Howell said it is important for the public to see any political correspondence between NASA, the vice president’s camp and/or Boeing because other countries, such as China, are watching for such “signs of weakness.”

“Harris appears to have signaled a willingness to give up America’s space advantage in the name of efforts to ‘save democracy,’” he said, suggesting that the DEIA priority could threaten national security. “When is enough enough?”

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The astronauts, however, approached the long journey calmly.

“I love being in space. It’s my happy place,” Williams said.

Wilmore will not be able to attend his daughter’s senior year of high school, but on Friday he requested an absentee ballot so he could vote from orbit.

Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ government office and her campaign but did not receive a response.

In a response to Fox News Digital regarding the FOIA request, a NASA spokesperson said Harris and NSpC staff “have been receiving frequent updates regarding the Starliner crewed test flight.”

“While the National Space Council works closely with civilian, national security, commercial and international partners to advance the nation’s space priorities, it does not make recommendations or decisions regarding the safety of spaceflight,” the spokesman wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report..