Latest news with #SuniWilliams
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
When 8 Days Became 9 Months, Stranded NASA Astronauts Wondered If They'd Ever ‘Make it Back' to Earth
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were unexpectedly stuck in space from June 2024 to March 2025 Both astronauts considered the possibility that they may not return home to Earth, but they didn't verbalize the thought because of their astronaut training "If we weren't able to dock, would we be able to make it back? We didn't know," Wilmore said in a new BBC interviewStuck in space for months, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore weren't sure if they would ever return home. Last June, the NASA astronauts' eight-day test flight took an unexpected turn, leaving them stranded in space for nine months. During that time, the pair had to consider a future in which they would never see their families again — a possibility that they both found themselves contemplating. Never coming home 'definitely went through our minds,' Wilmore, 62, told the BBC two months after they returned to Earth on March 18. It was a particularly worrisome thought, Wilmore said, before the duo docked safely at the International Space Station — which is where they spent nearly all of their time in space. "Docking,' the father of two told the BBC, 'was imperative. If we weren't able to dock, would we be able to make it back? We didn't know.' Both Wilmore and Williams, 59, told the British outlet that, despite thinking the worst, they did not state their worries out loud thanks to their training, which tells them to prioritize finding solutions. 'You sort of read each other's mind and know where we're going with all the failures,' Williams told the BBC. 'These were not expected.' But, she continued, 'at the same time, you know, we're like, what do we have? What can we do?' Through it all, however, the pair 'knew nobody was going to just let us down,' Williams told the BBC. The astronauts, she added, 'knew everybody had our back and was looking out for us.' Shortly after completing their long-awaited journey from the ISS to Earth, the astronauts recounted their time in space. Wilmore revealed that prior to takeoff, he had prepared his daughters, Daryn and Logan, for the possibility that he would be in space for longer than the intended eight days. "Did I think about not being there for my daughter's high school year? Of course," he told Fox News' America's Newsroom in March. 'We've trained them to be resilient — my daughters, my family, we talk about these things. We talk about the fact that there's no given, this is a test flight. We don't know what's going to happen. We might not be back in eight days or whatever the plan was.' But Wilmore did not let the 'personal side of it' — as he phrased it — 'interfere with what I'm called to do at the moment.' After their spacecraft, a Boeing Starliner, ran into mechanical issues following the June 2024 launch, Williams and Wilmore's return was delayed and, after weeks of troubleshooting, the spacecraft was sent back without them. Last December, NASA stated that it planned to bring the astronauts back to Earth 'no earlier than late March," which the agency later followed through on. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories. While stuck in space, the astronauts celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas, voted in the 2024 U.S. election and spoke with the media. During a press conference from space in early March, Williams even described her time at the ISS as 'fun.' 'Every day is interesting because we're up in space and it's a lot of fun,' she said at the time. "The hardest part is having the folks on the ground have to not know exactly when we're coming back.' Read the original article on People
BBC News
2 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Almost lost in space: Astronauts recall tension of troubled Starliner flight
When astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore approached the International Space Station (ISS) last year with failing thrusters on their Boeing Starliner capsule, they were unable to fly forward to dock. And if they couldn't dock, they didn't know if they could make it back home again."Docking was imperative," Mr Wilmore told BBC News, two months after he and Ms Williams finally made a successful return to Earth. "If we weren't able to dock, would we be able to make it back? We didn't know."The astronauts had been travelling on a test flight that was meant to last eight days. Instead, they ended up staying in space for nearly 10 months. The first challenge was to dock safely and successfully at the ISS, which they managed to do within several minutes after Mission Control on the ground helped them restart the craft's Wilmore said that the possibility they might never see Earth again "definitely went through our minds".But both astronauts said they didn't communicate the worst-case scenarios out loud in those moments, because they were trained to move on with solving problems. "You sort of read each other's mind and know where we're going with all the failures," Ms Williams told the BBC. "These were not expected," she admitted. But thoughts quickly turned to solutions: "At the same time, you know, we're like, what do we have? What can we do?" Astronauts Butch and Suni finally back on EarthHow did the Nasa pair fill nine months in space? The pair's saga began in June 2024. They were taking part in the first crewed test flight of the Starliner spacecraft, which was developed by aerospace company after a number of technical problems during their flight, the option of Starliner carrying the astronauts home as planned was deemed to be a risk not worth taking - given that the pair could instead be brought back by another company, that reason, they stayed in space until they hitched a ride back on a SpaceX capsule. For its part, Boeing maintained that its own capsule was safe to use - and was proven right when the craft returned, uncrewed, in September months of experiments aboard the space station, Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore eventually returned to Earth on 18 this phase of their mission, the pair were repeatedly described as stranded, implying there was no means for them to get off the that was not the case, as the space station always has spacecraft attached to it - which could have acted in an emergency as a lifeboat to carry the astronauts back to the pair's stay was longer than expected - though the Nasa pair embraced this."We knew nobody was going to just let us down... we knew everybody had our back and was looking out for us," Ms Williams in limbo, the pair even found themselves in the middle of a political row, after US President Donald Trump blamed his predecessor Joe Biden for abandoning them in space. But the astronauts said they ignored the politics and didn't feel abandoned. "We can't speak to that at all," said Mr Wilmore. "We understand space flight is hard, human space flight is even harder." After two months back on the ground, both astronauts say they are feeling fit and well, because the workouts that they undertook while in their zero-gravity environment paid in zero gravity means your body doesn't need much time to recover from the daily squats and deadlifts, Mr Wilmore said he performed squats and deadlifts "every single day for almost 10 months", meaning that he returned to Earth "literally stronger than I've ever been in my life".Ms Williams agreed - she went running days after landing back on Earth and once ran a full marathon in space strapped to a treadmill - but said it's not always easy to readjust to the weight of the world. "Just getting gravity back on your head and your back and all that kind of stuff is a little bit painful," she their return, the pair have been working with Nasa and Boeing to fix problems with the malfunctioning spacecraft that took them into space last summer."We are very positively hopeful that there will be opportunities to fly the Boeing Starliner in the future," Mr Wilmore both astronauts said they would personally fly in the craft again - once those technical issues were resolved."It's a very capable spacecraft," Ms Williams said. "It has unique capabilities compared to other spacecraft that are out there that are really great for future astronauts to fly."
Mint
3 days ago
- Science
- Mint
What space, submarines and polar research teach about teamwork
If you are fed up with the other people on your team, remember this: it could be so much worse. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, two American astronauts, returned to Earth on March 18th after a planned days-long mission to the International Space Station turned into a nine-month stay. At the SANAE IV research station in Antarctica, reports have emerged of assault, death threats and intimidation among a team of South African scientists who arrived there in February; they are due to leave the base only in December. Submariners on Britain's nuclear-armed subs can be at sea for six months or more. Spacecraft, polar-research stations and submarines are among a set of environments classed as isolated, confined and extreme (ICE). They put that two-day off-site retreat you're dreading into perspective. They also put very specific stresses on teams. Most obviously, there is no real escape from each other. If you storm out of an Antarctic research station, you will storm back in again fairly quickly. Privacy will always be limited: a British nuclear sub has a crew of 130 or so in a vessel whose length a sprinter would cover in under 20 seconds. Its absence is likely to be particularly obvious to women in male-dominated teams. Family members are a very long way away; any future missions to Mars would involve crews spending years away from home. These are plainly not typical team environments. You cannot tell a story that no one else knows about you, do a few trust falls—and then blast off. NASA, America's space agency, simulates the conditions of space at a facility in Houston called the Human Exploration Research Analogue (HERA), a 650-square-foot structure where crews can spend weeks at a time on mock missions. A paper by Mathias Basner of the University of Pennsylvania and his co-authors reports on a 520-day simulation of a mission to Mars that was conducted in Moscow in 2011. Of a multinational crew comprising six male volunteers, one reported symptoms of depression almost all the way through. Only two crew members reported no sleep disturbances or psychological distress, which makes them the weirdest of the lot. Extreme though these situations are, they provide a magnified lens on more quotidian team problems. One example is tedium. Missions to ICE environments can be a curious combination of danger and monotony. Antarctic explorers report that it is preferable to follow someone on the ice than to lead, because at least there is something to look at. But there are ways to inject meaning into the mundane whatever the workplace. A paper by Madeleine Rauch of the University of Cambridge looks at the disconnect experienced by UN peacekeepers between the abstract ideals of their work and the humdrum reality of it. She finds that people cope better with boredom if they are able to reframe tedious tasks as steps towards the larger goal. Another magnified problem is conflict. Small things can lead to great friction among colleagues in every workplace. ('Wow, you want to see crew dynamics," reads one entry in a journal kept by an astronaut on the International Space Station, about an attempt to take a group photo. 'I thought we were going to lose a member of the crew during that one.") But defusing conflict is much more important if there is nowhere for an angry worker to cool off. Personality obviously matters here. Some of the traits that seem to predict successful team members in ICE environments include agreeableness, emotional stability and humour. Empathy also matters. In his book 'Supercommunicators", Charles Duhigg describes research conducted at NASA to test would-be astronauts for their instinctive capacity to match the emotions, energy levels and mood of an interviewer. Tactics can help mitigate conflict, too. Regular team debriefs are a constructive way to bring simmering issues to the surface, especially if crews have very limited contact with mission control. A paper on long-duration space exploration by Lauren Blackwell Landon of NASA and her co-authors suggests that debriefs can be effective hurtling away from Earth as well as on it. ICE environments plainly place very unusual demands on people. But they can teach some lessons about boredom, team composition, conflict resolution and more. And knowing that they exist might just make you feel happier about the daily commute. Subscribers to The Economist can sign up to our Opinion newsletter, which brings together the best of our leaders, columns, guest essays and reader correspondence.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Major health update on NASA's stranded astronauts who are STILL in pain months later
NASA's astronauts who spent 286 days in space have revealed the painful struggles they've faced after taking a major step forward in their recovery. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who returned from the International Space Station (ISS) in March, have just successfully completed nearly two months of physical therapy. The astronauts have been going through at least two hours of strength and conditioning training daily, working with NASA's medical team to rebuild muscle mass, restore their balance in Earth's gravity, and prevent further bone loss. It hasn't been a smooth process, with Wilmore, 62, admitting he still has back pain even after his rehabilitation came to an end. The astronaut also looked visibly thinner, especially in his face, during his first public appearance since finishing rehab on May 22. 'Gravity stinks for a period, and that period varies for different people,' Wilmore said. Williams, his 59-year-old co-pilot, added that her recovery from life in space has also been going slowly, as she experienced bouts of fatigue long into NASA's 45-day rehab process. The fatigue and extreme muscle loss, seen in photos after their landing, left Williams unable to get out of bed easily for weeks after the space mission. At the same time, the astronauts said they've been taking on an increasing workload, advising Boeing's Starliner program and trying to fix the beleaguered ship that stranded them in space in the first place. 'It's been a little bit of a whirlwind,' Williams told Reuters, adding that the duo still have 'obligations' to NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The program is a partnership with private companies to develop and operate spacecraft which transport astronauts to and from the ISS. Williams and Wilmore's mission in the first crewed Starliner pod in June 2024 was plagued with malfunctions, leading NASA and Boeing to cancel their return trip. This led to the astronauts having to wait 286 days for NASA to get a new spacecraft ready and a replacement crew prepared to rescue them in March 2025. 'I knew we were going to get home at some point in time. We just got to wait for the right ride and make sure everybody's all good with that and we'll get home,' Williams told WFAA during a NASA welcome home celebration last week. While Williams is remaining positive about the experience on the ISS, she noted that all that time in space disrupted her sleep for months after landing on Earth. She revealed that she felt tired throughout the physical therapy process, having difficulty getting her muscles to re-engage after living in zero gravity. A self-proclaimed 'early bird,' Williams' issues made it a struggle for her to wake up in the morning until late May when everything suddenly changed for the better. 'Then I'm up at four in the morning, and I'm like, Aha! I'm back,' she said after the welcome home event on May 22. The NASA ceremony brought more than 1,000 guests together at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to officially welcome home all four astronauts who returned from the ISS in a SpaceX Dragon capsule on March 18. For Wilmore, his physical pain started almost immediately after they splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean. Butch Wilmore said he still has some back pain after nearly 2 months in physical therapy following his time on the International Space Station. After splashing down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, the astronaut noted that neck pain began almost immediately 'We're still floating in the capsule in the ocean, and my neck starts hurting, while we still hadn't even been extracted yet,' Wilmore revealed. 'I still got a little twinge in one spot in my back after a couple of months,' he added. Wilmore noted that he had minor back and neck issues before his June 2024 spaceflight, but all of that cleared up in the low-gravity environment of space. 'You don't have any stress on your body,' the astronaut explained. Both rescued astronauts received weeks of physical and mental health support following their return, speaking with doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists about their isolating experience on the ISS. 'You're thrown together day and night seven days a week at 24 hours a day, and just like any family there's a point where something rubs you the wrong way or something - that happens anywhere,' Wilmore noted. Despite being locked in the cramped space station with Williams and two other astronauts for months, Wilmore added that their frustrations were 'minor.' As their recovery ends and the focus now turns to the next crew heading to the ISS, pressure builds on Boeing to make good on their multi-billion-dollar contract with NASA to deliver a vehicle that safely takes humans to and from the space station. NASA has already revealed plans to send Boeing's Starliner back into space - despite the international scandal it created by stranding Williams and Wilmore. The same day the astronauts returned to Earth, the space agency officially committed to using Starliner again. NASA stressed the importance of having two launch systems. SpaceX remains the other. Boeing's $4.5 billion Starliner project has been plagued with delays, glitches, and billions of dollars in cost overruns since the Commercial Crew Program began in 2010. NASA has admitted that Starliner will essentially have to go back to square one and prove it can safely carry astronauts all over again. Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich added that Starliner would have to gain back its certification for the Commercial Crew Program.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
NASA's Butch and Suni wrap up recovery after nine months in space
STORY: :: Once-stranded U.S. astronauts Butch and Suni talk about rehab after nine months in space :: Johnson Space Center, Houston :: May 28, 2025 :: Butch Wilmore, NASA Astronaut "I think initially we'll start from the very beginning, you know, pulling GS for 30 plus years. I don't have a great you know, I've got some issues in my neck. I can't turn my head all the way. But in space that goes away, you know, you don't have any stress on your body. No problem with my neck. We're still floating in the capsule in in the ocean, and my neck starts hurting while we're still, we haven't been extracted yet. So anyway, gravity stinks for a period and then that period varies for different people, but eventually you get over that neurovestibular balance type of issues and then your back is not used to holding up your structure. So the muscles tense up." :: Suni Williams, NASA Astronaut "Yeah. So that's that was really the first month to 45 days of that. And then we graduated and, you know, back to normal. And I felt though honestly, I was still tired, like all the little muscles are getting reengaged. And so it kept me being like not being able to wake up. Like normally I like to wake up early in the morning until about a week and a half ago. Then I'm like up at four in the morning. I'm like, aha, I'm back. So, you know, I think all of that just takes a little while to get back to gravity. Just like Butch said, it's just a little bit of a readaptation and and then, you know, we're here and we're feeling fine." Wilmore and Williams, who last year set off for an eight-day Starliner test flight that swelled into an nine-month stay in space, have had to readapt their muscles, sense of balance and other basics of Earth-living in a 45-day readaptation period standard for astronauts returning from long-term space missions. The astronaut duo have spent at least two hours a day with astronaut strength and reconditioning officials within NASA's medical unit while juggling an increasing workload with Boeing's Starliner program, NASA's space station unit in Houston and agency researchers. Propulsion system issues on Boeing's Starliner forced NASA to bring the capsule back without its crew last year and fold the two astronauts into its normal, long-duration rotation schedule on the ISS. While normal ISS missions last six months, with some lasting longer in contingency plans, Wilmore and William's mission extension was fraught with technical uncertainty at a high-stakes moment for Boeing, making the astronaut duo's condition a global spectacle.
