Two astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were only supposed to be in space for 8 days, but now they won’t come home until next year. 

The two astronauts should’ve come home on the Boeing Starliner, but it was deemed unfit to take the men back to earth. The inadequate Starline will detach and leave the ISS without anyone on board in early september. Back at home Boeing engineers disagreed about the risk. The Crew Dragon will be launched on September 24, 2024. The Crew Dragon will carry only two astronauts instead of the 4 that were supposed to go home. NASA has yet to announce who the two will be bumped off. Suni and Butch will hopefully come back to earth sometime in February. 

“The name of the game is being ready for whatever happens,” The former astronaut Ed Lu said in an interview “Anybody who’s been around the business knows that the schedules always change. When you think you’re going to launch, that could change. When you think you’re going to land, well, that could change too.”

One problem with staying in space for so long is the effects on your body. Microgravity is one of the forces that could affect you. When you are in space your muscles weaken and you lose 1% of bone density a month. Another effect is the blood rushing to your head. When you lay on the couch or bed and hang your head off the end you feel all the blood rush to your head, that’s how it feels in space all the time. Scott Kelly went to the space station for 340 days and the change in fluids led to Kelly’s eyes changing shape which affected his vision. His heart became rounder too because his blood vessels swelled and his carotid arteries thickened. A paper in 2019 found that some astronauts on the space station experienced reverse blood flow in their jugular vein, some of which led to clotting. And when you’re in space, clotting is not a good thing.

Cites:

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