We all get stuck somewhere sometimes when we travel. In an airport overnight when our flight is cancelled. Out of town when our car breaks down.
But how many people have been stranded in a way as harrowing as American astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore? Not lost in space, but trapped somewhere in space. They were launched in early June on a Boeing Starliner from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to the International Space Station on a mission to test the new vehicle. Well, it turns out the craft has some problems, mostly with the thrusters that help maneuver and propel it.
A trip that was expected to last about a week has now turned into a two-month stay, with no firm end in sight. There are no Pep Boys in space, so astronauts wait. It’s up to NASA engineers, in consultation with other astronauts and scientists, to decide whether the Starliner is safe enough to bring Butch and Suni (as NASA officials call them) home. NASA officials said they would make that decision after a final review in about a week.
If they decide it's too dangerous, the two won't return to Earth until they can board a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that's scheduled to arrive in September with two astronauts. But those two won't be finished with their mission and ready to return to Earth until around February.
Butch and Suni's eight-day trip will have been extended to an eight-month stay.
How can you plan to go somewhere for eight days and then realize you'll be there for eight months? You didn't pack enough clothes. You left your wives, dogs, and hobbies behind.
As someone who doesn't even like getting in an elevator for eight seconds, I can't imagine how claustrophobic it is to be on a space station for eight months, even though it's nearly the length of a football field from end to end, and according to NASA, the living and working space is larger than a six-bedroom house. Much of that space is divided into modules and research labs. It doesn't seem as spacious as the starship Enterprise.
Butch and Suni joined a crew of seven astronauts (Expedition 71) already on the station and entitled to what are considered the ultimate sleeping accommodations: phone-booth-sized compartments attached to the interior walls so that sleepers don't float away in microgravity.
Suni sleeps in a makeshift bed in one lab, and Butch has a sleeping bag in another lab that he secures in place while he sleeps for the night (or several nights). The space station orbits Earth 16 times a day, so there are many sunrises and sunsets in an eight-hour period.
It's like sleeping on your sister-in-law's couch for Christmas, but for half a year?
At least they can finally get clean clothes. A resupply ship carrying 8,200 tons of food, fuel and supplies arrived earlier this month, and another, loaded with nearly three tons of cargo, is expected to dock on Saturday. So they have a kind of DoorDash in space.
Oh, and there's a gym where they spend hours a day on a treadmill, bike and weight-lifting system to counteract the loss of bone and muscle mass in microgravity.
For those of us living on Earth, space travel can seem like a respite from the stresses (wars, political conflicts and global warming) of planet Earth.
But then something happens that reminds us of the stress that exists up there, as well as the danger.
If being stranded in space while people on Earth decide whether the vehicle you traveled in will bring you safely home (or whether you need to wait half a year for another spacecraft) is disconcerting, the astronauts didn't show it at a July news conference from the space station.
Of course, Butch and Suni aren't your average Earthlings. They're former Navy test pilots and NASA space station veterans. Suni also spent nine days living in a NASA underwater research lab.
“Again, this is a test flight and we were expecting to find some things, so we’re finding them and fixing them,” said Suni, who added that she and Butch joined the crew stationed there right away, helping them with science experiments and “some important maintenance tasks that have been waiting for a while. There was the urine processing pump.”
The crew waited for the new guys to show up to fix the piss bomb? That's a little harsh.
When they finally make it back to Earth safely, we hope they have a vacation where they can sleep in beds that don't float unless they're tied to something, eat food that isn't shipped by the ton, and know that whenever they want, they can return home.
