Many people have the dream of going to space. There are relatively few who will ever have the opportunity, and they have to be brave when they do so.
Some astronauts make history for a variety of different reasons, but Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams, 59, and Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore, 61 are making history for all the wrong reasons. They were sent on an 8-day mission in space but unfortunately, over 150 days have passed.
The astronauts went into space on a Boeing Starliner on June 5. Because of some technical issues and thruster failers along with helium leaks, they went off course. They then had to make a decision, do they return to earth in the compromised spacecraft or wait for a rescue mission?
As of now, they have been in space for 150 days after what was supposed to be an 8-day mission. They are hoping that SpaceX’s Dragon capsule will eventually be able to come to get them home.
It looks like those two American astronauts stuck in the ISS are not in good health, especially Suni Williams.🤔 pic.twitter.com/0bO64DUXeu
— ShanghaiPanda (@thinking_panda) November 1, 2024
With newly released photos of the astronauts, people are very concerned about them. This is particularly true of Williams, who seems to have some health problems that are visually noticeable.
The photos began circulating on X and social media users were quick to point out that Williams looked different than what she did when she left Earth.
A comment also came in from Dr. Vinay Gupta on the subject. He said: “What you’re seeing there in that picture is somebody that I think is experiencing the natural stresses of living at a very high altitude, even in a pressurized cabin, for extended periods.
“Her cheeks appear a bit sunken – and usually it happens when you’ve had sort of total body weight loss.
“I think what I can discern by her face and her cheeks being sunken in is that [she] has probably been at a significant [calorie] deficit for a while.”
Even though there seems to be a visible issue, the doctor doesn’t seem to give a dire prognosis. He said: “I don’t think she’s quite at a… place where I say her life’s in danger. But I don’t think you can look at that photo and say she has sort of healthy body weight.”
As of now, they are scheduled to come back to Earth in February 2025 on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson confirmed this, saying: “NASA has decided that Butch and Suni will return with [SpaceX’s] Crew-9 next February, and that Starliner will return uncrewed.”
— NASA (@NASA) August 24, 2024
Wilmore also was thankful for the safety and the options they had available. He said: “Obviously, when you have issues like we’ve had, there’s some changes that need to be made. Boeing’s on board with that. We’re all on board with that.”
He went on to speak about the emerging technology of spacecraft, saying: “Starliner’s crewed test flight was meant to push the edge of the envelope… In this case, we found some things that we just could not get comfortable with putting us back in the Starliner.”
In conclusion, the astronaut said: “There’s many cases in the past where there have not been other options. We were very fortunate that we have the Space Station and that we had the option to stay and we had the option to come back a different way.”
We look forward to their safe return.
