After spending more than 286 days in the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore finally returned home Tuesday, March 18th. These brave individuals were originally intending on staying in orbit only one week, however they encountered technical issues with their vehicle’s thrusters during the docking process, forcing their stay to be extended so drastically.
Butch Wilmore told NBC news that he had been somewhat aware of the politically charged rhetoric surrounding their unexpectedly long stay, but made sure to include that he’d never once felt abandoned by NASA in any way. Wilmore states, “I didn’t think about those type of things. We were busy. We were focused on our mission.”
During their stay, Williams and Wilmore made a point to stay productive, making good use of their abundance of time. They participated in a grand total of 900 hours of research, completing 150 experiments together. In addition to maintaining the functionality of the station, and were even venturing on spacewalks. With Williams going as far as setting a record for time spent spacewalking performed by a female astronaut (62 hours and six minutes).
However, there are in fact negative health benefits for such a long visit spent in Earth’s orbit. In the microgravity of the environment that is space, human bones have a tendency of losing both density and strength. It’s said that past astronauts have reported experiencing the loss of roughly 1-2% of bone mineral density per month spent in space. This leads to the increased risk of fracture, as well as increased risk of osteoporosis, a medical condition in which the bones become brittle and fragile from loss of tissue. Though the effects of spaceflight on the human body are complex and largely harmful over both short and long term significance.
Though both Williams and Wilmore repeatedly expressed their lack of fear while being supposedly stranded, they still had attachments to Earth. Both of their families were waiting for them when they arrived at the airport in Ellington, Texas. But naturally, they both expressed their desire to return to the little things of life on Earth, such as grilled cheese, and the smell of freshly cut grass.