NASA Astronauts Return Home After Months Long Delay

What Happened?

NASA Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore secured a ride home after their originally scheduled ten-day mission on board the International Space Station was ultimately delayed nine months. 

The original mission called for the astronauts to travel and return home via the Boeing Starliner commercial spacecraft. But after engineers discovered problems with the craft, the mission became delayed. 

The pair will join an elite group, as only eight other NASA astronauts have been in space nine months or longer. On March 14^th a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station at 1:35 a.m. bringing a replacement crew and enabling Williams and Wilmore to bring their extended space travel to an end.

Why it Matters

The two astronauts have been in space much longer than originally planned. Extended space flight can have a number of medical consequences for the human body. 

For example, roughly eighty percent of astronauts exposed to prolonged microgravity experienced permanent vision loss, in what medical professional call idiopathic intercranial pressure syndrome. 

Due to microgravity the shape of the eye changes, causes lasting vision loss, and thus far medical science has been unable to find a way to reverse it.

Bone density and muscle loss is another major challenge for astronauts exposed to long term space flight, with some astronauts having to learn how to walk again after returning home to earth.

Even though astronauts exercise regularly while about the International Space Station, the effects of long-term microgravity are still severe.

Private space travel has been growing in popularity in the past decade, highlighted by such trips as the Jeff Bezos space flight in 2021. Although private space flight remains a relatively small industry, the fact it exists at all is remarkable. 

Even two decades ago the idea of private citizens going to space without any government agencies seemed impossible. Yet today a growing number of private companies can not only send equipment to space, but can transport people as well.

For now, private space travel remains an activity for the wealthy. But in the next decade that could change as more frequent flights, and improved technology could lower both the costs and some of the dangers. 

Space flight will always be risky, but as technology gets better many of those risks could be mitigated and managed in much the same way commercial air travel has been.

How it Affects You

Ordinary citizens are still a long way from being able to buy a ticket and board a spacecraft.

But recent endeavors like the Williams-Wilmore mission continue to bring the world a step closer to the day when commercial space travel becomes more commonplace. 

Their safe return to earth even after a long delay is a victory for the space industry.