“Stranded” Space Station astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore finally came home yesterday. They splashed down off the coast of Florida around 6:00 P.M. Eastern.
They went up on Boeing’s Starliner capsule last June, and were supposed to be there eight days. But the ship’s thrusters malfunctioned, so they couldn’t come home on it. They ended up hanging out in space for nine months, or more than 280 days.
That’s a long time, but not the record. Astronaut Frank Rubio was up there for 371 straight days in 2022 and 2023. A Russian cosmonaut holds the overall record, 437 straight days.
(CNN has a list of how that much time in space affects your body. Your face puffs up . . . your muscles and bones deteriorate . . . and your vision gets blurry as your eyeballs start to flatten from fluid build-up.)
