Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore, 61, and Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams, 59, only planned to be floating in the endless abyss of space for a week. Eight days tops. But the two Nasa astronauts have been stuck in the International Space Station since June after a raft of technical hiccups.
Image Credit: Metro [(FILES) This undated handout picture from Nasa released on July 2, 2024 shows NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts (from top) Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station's Harmony module and Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. Two astronauts stranded in space may sound like the start to a big-screen science thriller, but the Boeing Starliner mission is no work of Hollywood fiction. Astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita "Suni" Williams were originally scheduled to spend a little more than a week aboard the International Space Station as part of the debut crew flight test of the Starliner. However, the spacecraft encountered several issues during the flight, and now the two astronauts will likely have to extend their stay aboard the ISS for several months. (Photo by Handout / NASA / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / NASA" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS (Photo by HANDOUT/NASA/AFP via Getty Images)]
And they’ll be hundreds of miles above your head for a little while longer – Nasa confirmed that the February rescue mission has been pushed back. SpaceX, the rocket maker owned by Elon Musk, needs another month to get its new Dragon capsule (Butch and Suni’s taxi home, basically) up and ready.
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‘Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavour that requires great attention to detail,’ Nasa’s Steve Sitch said yesterday. This means the off-worlders will living in the ISS for roughly eight months.
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But how will this affect Butch and Suni’s bodies?. Space, it’s pretty safe to say, is hostile to us Earthlings. There’s no air to breathe or gravity to keep you and all the bones and organs jiggling around inside of you in place. Yet space can do strange things to us even when we’re safely inside a spaceship like the ISS.
Image Credit: Metro [Mandatory Credit: Photo by Joel Kowsky/Nasa/Planet Pix via ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock (14822684b) Support teams work to secure the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft after splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, October 25, 2024 off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. The capsule carried Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, back from the International Space Station. NASA SpaceX Crew-8 Capsule Returns to Earth, Pensecola, Fl, United States of America - 25 Oct 2024]
Standing up, for example, becomes pointless. Muscles that help to maintain our posture – think back, neck, calves and quadriceps – diminish by as much as 20% in only two weeks. This also includes the heart, which doesn’t have to pump as hard up in the stars as there’s low-gravity. The muscle will shrink about 1/40th of an ounce a week.
![[Mandatory Credit: Photo by Joel Kowsky/Nasa/Planet Pix via ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock (14822684b) Support teams work to secure the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft after splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, October 25, 2024 off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. The capsule carried Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, back from the International Space Station. NASA SpaceX Crew-8 Capsule Returns to Earth, Pensecola, Fl, United States of America - 25 Oct 2024]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/SEI_227084705-ec74.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
