Three NASA astronauts, Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, ended a nearly eight-month stay aboard the international space station on October 25 with their safe landing on earth.
All three astronauts were brought to Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola shortly after the landing for precaution. However, one astronaut’s health problem remains a mystery.
The trio was in between their first press conference since landing in the Gulf of Mexico, when question raised but they decided not to disclose who among them had was sent to hospital and suffered from what!
Doctor Hesitates to reveal, reassures ‘Team is fine’
Even when reporters have been repeatedly questioning, doctor Michael Barratt evaluating them, said “These are medical records and I can’t give much more information now,” citing the medical privacy laws.
“Spaceflight is still something we don’t fully understand,” Barratt explained during the conference. “We’re finding things that we don’t expect sometimes — this was one of those times. We’re still piecing things together. I’m a medical doctor, space medicine is my passion, and how we adapt, how we experience human spaceflight, is something that we all take very seriously. In the fullness of time, we will allow this to come out.”
When asked what kind of symptoms or conditions the astronauts were in, he assured the public that all members of the team are fine.
A Prolonged Mission
Long after their planned stay, unexpected technical problems and adverse weather conditions prolonged the astronauts’ mission in space. Explosion of Boeing’s Starliner capsule which was earlier scheduled for a crewed mission further delayed the return, forcing the astronauts to use SpaceX’s capsule to get back to Earth. Return date was also postponed by severe weather events including Hurricane Milton.
Accompanying the American astronauts was Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, who had been aboard the ISS since March. Four crew members had to endure the entire gamut of space’s in its entirety physical and mental challenges associated with long-duration space missions.
Re-Entry to Earth’s Gravity
As they acclimatize to life on Earth, Dominick, Barratt, and Epps mentioned readapting to gravity. For Dominick, it was a totally new experience as an astronaut. “The big things you expect, being disoriented, being dizzy. But the little things, like just sitting in a hard chair, you can’t prepare for,” he said. “My backside has not really sat in a hard thing for 235 days.”
According to Dominick, he had done a test in space, and during it he had chosen to forego the use of the treadmill in the ISS. In other words, they had chosen to see which of the exercise equipment could be downsized or reduced to use in long-duration missions, maybe to Mars, and he would walk for the first time since almost eight months on exiting the capsule.
She told of her own experiences, but unfortunately, no one’s body is prepared to react the same way to a long-duration spaceflight. “Everyone is different in how they respond to space — and gravity,” she said. “That’s the part that you can’t predict. Every day is better than the day before.”
Other Astronauts Still Orbiting Space Station
Meanwhile, NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams are still aboard the ISS. originally planned for a 2-month stint aboard the Starliner, but this week marked her 156th day in space mainly due to persistent technical issues in the Starliner capsule.
A seasoned NASA astronaut, Williams has created a small tempest around controversy over photo’s revealing her drastic weight loss. According to NASA officials, however, she and Wilmore are fit, and both astronauts will be returning to Earth aboard a SpaceX capsule later this February.
Astronaut health, including the psychological and physical effects of space travel, always remains an active area of research, especially given the prospect of longer missions into space, like manned missions to Mars, beginning in the mid-century century.
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