Needham celebrates as "hometown hero" astronaut Suni Williams returns to Earth
After almost 10 months in space, Needham native Sunita Williams and fellow astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore are back on Earth. The
SpaceX Dragon capsule splashed down
as planned off the coast of Florida Tuesday evening.
At a watch party at The Common Room in Needham, cheers erupted for their hometown hero.
"A big relief," said Maria, one of Suni's former classmates. "She's been away for too long. She's amazing. She does things that are so incredible, and we are so proud of her. She's just our hero."
Needham residents were excited and anxious for the return of Williams and Wilmore after their 286-day space odyssey.
Williams' flight suit and other NASA artifacts are enshrined at the Sunita Williams Elementary School in Needham, which was named after her in 2019.
"I think it's an exciting day and exciting return. We love Suni here. She is our local shero," said Kiana Brunson, principal of the elementary school.
Students, faculty and families watched her triumphant return from their homes.
"I think it's really great for kids to see that someone who grew up in this community and graduated from Needham Public Schools can go on to become someone so successful and explore the world beyond, the universe, and it helps our students understand what's really possible," Brunson said.
Their mission was
originally expected to last
only eight days in orbit, but the spacecraft suffered multiple propulsion system helium leaks and thruster problems. Now 286 days later and covering 121 million miles since their launch last June, both Williams and Wilmore are coming home.
"It's just dream big, you can do anything," former classmate Maria said. "If a girl that we graduated with and used to muck about in Needham can be in the space station setting records for the world, then you can do anything."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Opinion - After the Trump-Musk dustup, NASA has much to consider
The social media-driven feud between President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk may have simmered down a bit, with the rhetoric cooling and Musk even deleting some of his ill-considered posts about Trump from X and then apologizing for them. But the shockwaves generated by the tit-for-tat insults and threats still reverberate through NASA and the commercial space sector. When Trump threatened to pull all of SpaceX's government contracts and Musk responded by threatening to decommission the Dragon spacecraft, an apocalyptic scenario that would have cripped NASA loomed. Fortunately, both men have since backed off. Even so, according to the Washington Post, NASA and the Defense Department are quietly urging commercial space companies to hurry the development of hardware that can compete with what SpaceX has to offer. Encouraging competition with SpaceX is sound policy regardless of the relationship between Trump and Musk. However, that competition is months, if not years, in the future. The next flight of the Boeing Starliner, which failed so spectacularly in 2024, will be early next year at the earliest. The Blue Origin New Glenn, an answer to the SpaceX Falcon family of rockets, may launch once more this year and is a long way from achieving Falcon-level launch cadence. It is in Trump's and Musk's interests, and that of the American space effort, that both men repair their relationship and move on. One of the issues that drove Trump and Musk apart was Trump's abrupt and inexplicable withdrawal of the nomination of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and private space traveler, for NASA administrator. Musk had championed Isaacman, who is well regarded in the aerospace community, and took it to heart when Trump changed his mind about his own nominee. The resulting leadership vacuum at NASA is being filled by Congress. The Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), has offered its own ideas for a NASA budget. The Senate Commerce document is at odds with the White House proposal in one important aspect. Whereas the Trump budget eliminates the Space Launch System after Artemis III and the Lunar Gateway, Senate Commerce would retain the massive, expensive rocket at least through Artemis V and would build the Gateway to support future Artemis missions. A NASA administrator such as Isaacman would be able to argue for the White House's approach. As for Isaacman, some people in the MAGA world, no doubt stung by the near-universal outrage sparked by his treatment at the hands of the White House, have started to trash the former nominee in the media. A recent Daily Caller story quoted unnamed White House officials accusing Isaacman of not only giving money to Democrats but of supporting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at his companies and in his private spaceflights. But both of these facts were known when Isaacman was nominated. According to the story, the officials said, 'Isaacman would have been a black spot on an administration otherwise filled with Republican Trump supporters or, at least, individuals like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who backed the president prior to the election.' To hear these unnamed sources talk, Isaacman is no better than left-wing House members Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and their Squad. It should be noted that even if Isaacman wanted to impose DEI policies at NASA, he couldn't because of Trump's executive order prohibiting it across the federal government. Isaacman posted to X in his own defense: 'I am a moderate and donated to both parties for different reasons … my largest contribution was to President Trump — because I support many of his policies. I definitely did not like the direction this country was going over the last 4 years.' He went on to state, 'I have never spoken against the President. I have never voted against him.' It sounds like Isaacman is very loyal to Trump, remarkable under the circumstances. The suggestion of disloyalty is spurious and against the White House's interests. Isaacman's situation could provide the basis of a rapprochement between Trump and Musk. Musk has already apologized to the president for some of his posts on X, particularly the one suggesting that Trump is named in the Department of Justice's files on Jeffrey Epstein. But the president should admit fault as well. He was deceived by some of his staff about Isaacman's character. If it is not too late, he should reverse himself a second time and send his fellow billionaire's name back into nomination. NASA, the U.S., and the Trump-Musk partnership would gain as a result. Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled 'Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?' as well as 'The Moon, Mars and Beyond,' and, most recently, 'Why is America Going Back to the Moon?' He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Digital Trends
4 hours ago
- Digital Trends
Astronaut's sublime Earth photo is surely one of his best yet
NASA astronaut Don Pettit has been back on terra firma for almost two months and he's still able to dig out some awesome photos that he took during his half-a-year stay on the International Space Station (ISS). Pettit's latest image, posted for the first time on X on Sunday, shows the lights of cities and fishing fleets across southeast Asia, an atmospheric glow, the Milky Way, and part of the station itself as it orbited Earth 250 miles up. The city lights of Southeast Asia beneath the Milky Way. Vibrant colors of LED cities, orange atmospheric airglow, and fishing fleets are blurred by my sidereal drive, while tracking stars as fixed points in space. — Don Pettit (@astro_Pettit) June 16, 2025 The dramatic blur is caused by the extended exposure time and the motion of the orbital outpost, which is traveling through space at a speed of about 17,500 mph. The distant stars, however, remain sharp due to the use of a sidereal drive, a device that works by moving the camera at the same speed as the stars appear to move, thereby eliminating their movement within the frame. Recommended Videos During his recent stint aboard the space station, Pettit dazzled his many follows on X and Instagram with impressive photos and video of Earth and beyond. Check out this page where you can find some of his best work. Pettit has spoken previously about how the cameras are set up on the ISS to give astronauts the best chance of capturing an image when something catches their eye. 'Generally speaking, we don't turn any of the cameras off,' he told Time magazine. 'We don't put lens caps on. The cameras that are staged next to the window [of the cupola] are just set up, ready to go. 'And we'll have one camera with a 200 millimeter telephoto lens, and another camera with a 14 millimeter wide angle lens, and we'll have three or four cameras set up in between, because when you're taking pictures you don't have time to change lenses. So you just grab one camera, go click click click, set it down, grab another camera, click click click, grab another camera, click click click. And there's your 10-second window to get a picture of your hometown or the Pyramids.' Now aged 70, it's not yet clear if NASA's oldest serving astronaut will return to orbit, but happily for his fans, it seems that he's still got plenty of new content that he's eager to share.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
Astronaut Sally Ride Gave Life Partner Permission to Reveal Their 27-Year Romance 10 Days Before Dying
Groundbreaking astronaut Sally Ride and her partner Tam O'Shaughnessy were together for 27 years Ride died in 2012 of complications from pancreatic cancer at age 61 The new documentary Sally debuts June 16 on Nat Geo and will stream on Disney+ beginning the following daySally Ride is remembered for her pioneering journey into space, but a new documentary reveals another dimension of the astronaut's story. Ride's life partner Tam O'Shaughnessy opens up about their 27-year romance in Sally, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival in January and will debut on Nat Geo June 16 and stream on Disney+ beginning June 17. The documentary covers Ride's rise at NASA to become the first American woman in space in 1983 as well as her lesser-told love story, which started in the '80s. Though they kept their relationship hidden from the public for decades, O'Shaughnessy says that changed right before Ride died in 2012 of complications from pancreatic cancer at age 61. 'Ten days before she died, I asked her how I should be to the public,' O'Shaughnessy tells PEOPLE. 'I was holding sort of a public celebration of her life, and then a national tribute at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. And it was like, 'So who am I?' ' 'Our friends and family knew, and people guessed. It didn't feel honest,' she continues. 'She told me, you decide what you want to say, how open you want to be about our relationship.' O'Shaughnessy doesn't hold back on sharing her and Ride's intimate moments in the documentary. Since Ride was such a private person and the couple only had a few photos together, Sally director Cristina Costantini says they relied on filming recreations of actors that were 'all inspired directly from Tam's memory.' O'Shaughnessy, whose childhood friendship with Ride became romantic in 1985, says she hopes the film will help people understand their relationship and ultimately portray an American hero 'as who she really was.' 'We had a wonderful relationship from the time we were kids until we became lovers,' O'Shaughnessy says. 'I think it's something to be proud of.' Costantini praises O'Shaughnessy's vulnerability and humor as a narrator in the film, saying that her participation 'changed everything.' 'Sally is so closed off in her communication that Tam was the closest and most intimate voice that we could get to Sally,' the film's producer, Lauren Cioffi, adds. O'Shaughnessy says there are a few moments in her Sally interview reel 'where I sort of break down.' 'When I was describing my relationship with Sally, and especially when Sally got sick, I got teary-eyed, and it just got me all the way through to my heart and guts,' she says. 'And that was a little bit of a surprise.' Sally premieres on Nat Geo June 16 and will stream on Disney+ beginning June 17. Read the original article on People
