One of NASA’s stranded astronauts has revealed she has lost the ability to perform several basic tasks after being stranded in space for eight months.
Sunita Williams admitted this week that she has forgotten what it’s like to walk after spending 234 days in microgravity.
‘I’ve been up here long enough, right now I’ve been trying to remember what it’s like to walk. I haven’t walked. I haven’t sat down. I haven’t laid down,’ she said during a video call with students at Needham High School in Massachusetts on Monday.
Williams, 59 and her crewmate, Barry Wilmore, 62, were supposed to spend eight days on the ISS when they embarked on their mission on June 5, but the Boeing capsule that took them was plagued by technical issues.
The capsule has since returned to Earth empty, leaving the two astronauts stuck on the ISS until at least late March when they can catch a ride home on SpaceX’s Crew-9 spacecraft.
President Donald Trump said ‘the two brave astronauts’ were ‘virtually abandoned by the Biden administration’ and asked Elon Musk and SpaceX to ‘go get’ them.
‘Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe,’ the president said. ‘Good luck Elon!!!’
The 53-year-old billionaire vowed in a post to retrieve Wilmore and Sunita Williams ‘as soon as possible.’
Musk’s SpaceX was already tasked with bringing astronauts Williams and Wilmore back from the ISS prior to this new order due to Boeing’s Straliner malfunctioning in space.
The capsule experienced helium leaks and thruster malfunctions before, during and after its launch.
By August, NASA decided Starliner was unfit to safely bring the astronauts home, and announced that Williams and Wilmore would instead hitch a ride back to Earth on SpaceX’s Crew-9 capsule, which is currently docked to the ISS.
NASA previously said that Crew-9 would return home as soon as February, but the agency changed the mission timeline in December.
In a statement, officials explained that SpaceX needed more time to complete work on the Crew-10 capsule, which must launch to the ISS before Crew-9 can leave the ISS.
Thus, the astronauts’ return was pushed back to late March. By that time, they will have spent eight months in space.
During long space missions, microgravity takes a toll on astronauts’ bodies, causing significant muscle and bone deterioration.
For every month in space, astronauts’ weight-bearing bones become roughly one percent less dense if they don’t take precautions to counter this loss, according to NASA.
And their muscles which are usually activated by simply moving around on Earth also weaken because they no longer need to work as hard, the agency says.
When astronauts return from long-term space missions, it’s not uncommon for them not to be able to walk under their own power.
The recent statements from Musk and President Trump suggest the timing of Williams and Wilmore’s rescue mission could change again, potentially bringing them home sooner.
There are a couple ways SpaceX might do this, according to astrophysicist and science communicator Scott Manley.
One option is to launch Crew-10 earlier, which would also allow the Crew-9 capsule to bring Williams and Wilmore home earlier, he explained in a recent X post.
This would require SpaceX to finish work on the spacecraft ahead of schedule, but the company has not said that it is on track to do so.
Option two is to allow Crew-9 to return to Earth before Crew-10 launches, Manley said.
This would go against NASA protocol, which requires the agency to maintain a critical mass of astronauts on the ISS during the ‘handover process,’ or the overlap between a departing ISS crew’s time on the space station and a new crew’s arrival.
This period allows the departing crew (in this case, Crew-9 and the Starliner crew) to share any lessons learned with the newly arrived crew (Crew-10) and support a better transition for ongoing science and maintenance at the complex, according to NASA.
The handover process helps operations on the ISS run smoothly, but it is not an absolute necessity.
Should NASA opt to let the Crew-9 capsule leave the ISS before Crew-10 arrives, Russian Soyuz astronauts would be there to receive the Crew-10 astronauts.
There are a couple ways SpaceX might do this, according to astrophysicist and science communicator Scott Manley.
One option is to launch Crew-10 earlier, which would also allow the Crew-9 capsule to bring Williams and Wilmore home earlier, he explained in a recent X post.
This would require SpaceX to finish work on the spacecraft ahead of schedule, but the company has not said that it is on track to do so.
Option two is to allow Crew-9 to return to Earth before Crew-10 launches, Manley said.
This would go against NASA protocol, which requires the agency to maintain a critical mass of astronauts on the ISS during the ‘handover process,’ or the overlap between a departing ISS crew’s time on the space station and a new crew’s arrival.
This period allows the departing crew (in this case, Crew-9 and the Starliner crew) to share any lessons learned with the newly arrived crew (Crew-10) and support a better transition for ongoing science and maintenance at the complex, according to NASA.
The handover process helps operations on the ISS run smoothly, but it is not an absolute necessity.
Should NASA opt to let the Crew-9 capsule leave the ISS before Crew-10 arrives, Russian Soyuz astronauts would be there to receive the Crew-10 astronauts.
It’s also possible that the timing of the Starliner crew’s return will not change at all.
When Musk stated he would bring the astronauts home ‘as soon as possible,’ he may actually have been referring to the current mission schedule, Manley said.
What’s more, it could be that ‘Elon is trolling,’ he added. In other words, these statements from Musk and Trump may be displays of political showmanship that do not actually promise any real changes to the rescue mission’s timeline.
Neither SpaceX, NASA, nor the White House have made any official public statements regarding a revised return date for Williams and Wilmore.
In an emailed statement, NASA told DailyMail.com: ‘NASA and SpaceX are expeditiously working to safely return the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore as soon as practical, while also preparing for the launch of Crew-10 to complete a handover between expeditions.’
SpaceX and the White House did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
Despite the astronauts’ dramatically extended stay on the ISS, NASA has repeatedly stated that they are not stranded.
The agency has also emphasized that NASA astronauts always train for lengthy missions, and that medical experts have been closely monitoring the Starliner crew’s health as they endure the harsh conditions aboard the ISS, including low-gravity, heightened radiation exposure and the psychological stress of confinement.
If Williams and Wilmore do return home in late March as expected, their mission will have lasted two months longer than a standard long-term ISS mission, which typically lasts six months.
But they will not break astronaut Frank Rubio’s record for the longest stretch of time spent on the ISS, which is 371 consecutive days.
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