Six Months in Space: Stranded Astronauts Are Confident

A week in space turns into six months for them: NASA astronauts Wilmore and Williams have to adapt to some changes. But they maintain their optimism and sense of humor.

At least NASA test pilot Suni Williams hasn’t run out of humor about weightlessness: “Next time we’ll find a better parking spot where we won’t get dragged away,” she jokes—high in Earth orbit. Williams and her co-pilot Butch Wilmore were stranded aboard the International Space Station after difficulties with the space capsule that was supposed to return them to Earth. The eight days she and Wilmore were supposed to spend aboard the ISS will now turn into more than half a year.

“We certainly could have recovered the Starliner in a way that would have made the return trip justifiable,” Wilmore said in an interview with reporters from space. “But we ran out of time.” A crewed return flight was not possible until further testing and inspections were completed. Boeing’s Starliner capsule returned on Sept. 7 without a crew.

On board the competition

The irony is that the test pilots now have to fly with the competition. They will be flown in the spring of 2025 by a Crew Dragon capsule — and it comes from Boeing’s fiercest competitor in developing a reusable space capsule: Elon Musk’s SpaceX. And now they will return with experience from both spacecraft, says a NASA pilot. . That’s a stroke of luck.

Exactly what went wrong with the Starliner flight may not be assessed until Williams and Wilmore return.

Vote by mail instead of going to the polls.

Both of them are now getting used to being stranded in space, Wilmore says. “Of course there have to be adjustments when something like that happens,” Wilmore says. In space, their bone density and muscle mass are reduced, explains astronaut Williams. So, like all astronauts on the International Space Station, they have to complete a rigorous fitness program every day, either on a treadmill or an exercise bike.

Christmas with the family has to be canceled this year. But mail-in voting from space is working: He just applied for his mail-in voting documents, says the Tennessee Southerner. NASA makes it possible. Voting is a civic duty, Wilmore says, even if you’re hovering over a country that’s electing a new president. Harris or Trump? Neither of the stranded people have revealed their preference.

Looking at the ground changes perspective.

When you hover over things, the view expands: The idea that people on Earth don't get along is a difficult one from an orbital perspective, Williams says.

When she philosophizes, the astronaut looks like a space Medusa: her brown curls float violently around her head in weightlessness. A touch of daring surrounds the NASA astronaut, against the stark, high-tech backdrop of the International Space Station. “We only have this one planet,” is their message, “we should count ourselves lucky.”