It sounds less than ideal — but as the report notes, Williams and Wilmore’s difficulties don’t end with their sleeping arrangements.
As with every ISS mission, the Starliner astronauts initially had specific jobs to do on board the station that would have eaten up their eight-day journey. As Time reports, their main priority was checking in on the Boeing capsule and making sure its communications, life support, and other essential functions were in good shape.
With that checklist done and their journey having been extended until possibly February due to Starliner’s technical issues, Wilmore and Williams have instead been assisting their fellow crew members with their tasks and experiments, including repairing a urine processing pump.
Beyond that lovely job, Wilmore and Williams were also forced to stretch their clothing rations because there’s no laundry on board the ISS. Generally speaking, astronauts pack enough clothes for the length of their journey, and with their trip home having been pushed back repeatedly, the Starliner crew had to make do until a Northrop Grumman resupply mission finally came to deliver them new clothes earlier this month.
And remember that everyone you love is down there and you can’t even hug your kids. But hopefully you can fix that urine recycling system before everyone dies of thirst.
I think the astronaut life is not for you…
Some people would happily accept the indignities of space flight, for the unique opportunity to go.
And as you point out, fixing the urine recycling system is a critical job, it’s not like it’s busy work. If it doesn’t get repaired, everyone dies of thirst.
It’s not. For sure. Actually getting kind of creepy with projecting his attachments onto them with every post about the mission.
They thought they were going to be there for eight days. That is what they happily accepted.
I might happily accept a vacation to Tuscany, but if I found out I couldn’t leave or see my family for months after I got there, my mind might be different on the subject. And I wouldn’t be stuck in a little space station.
Uhh… I’ve never heard a single astronaut say “I wish I’d spent less time in orbit”.
Most astronauts sign up because they want to go to space, but then they end up only spending 1-6 months in space over the entirety of their career.
Imagine you wanted to be a chef, so you went to the finest culinary schools and then eventually for a job at an acclaimed restaurant. But then you had to just peel potatoes for years, before finally they let you be a provisional chef for a week and you actually got to use the skills you trained for, but still knowing that they’ll put you back on boring prep duty at the end of the week… But then at the end of the week the head chef gets sick and he’s out for the whole month! How would that feel?
Remember, this isn’t a vacation, this is their career. This is what they want to do. And these people have the most impressive resumes you’ve ever seen in your life, no joke, reading one is intimidating. They could do just about anything they want, and they choose this.
Because there’s never been a situation like this before.
And chefs get to go home and see their kids every night.
Their family is so close too, around 200 miles away.
Way closer than if you’re serving in the military overseas! That could be thousands of miles away!
Well you’re closer for at least for some of the day… Which is about 45 minutes long because you’re orbiting so fast…
Ok, so you’re not really closer, but sometimes you are, if you squint!
You are flying in space. Space. If you are in that situation, know you’ll eventually get home, but “I can’t hug my kids!” is the thought in your head, then you don’t deserve to be an astronaut. There are thousands of others who would happily take your place who don’t have some primal need to always be around their family. This isn’t a 3rd grade slumber party for fuck sakes.
Indelicately stated perhaps, but I quite agree with the sentiment. They’re up there a shorter time than deployed military personnel, and they’re in space, not some impoverished country we have no business invading. You can call your kids, or your parents, thats a common thing astronauts do! Even facetime, there’s regular ISS livestreams, I think they even streamed themselves playing KSP at one point. I went longer without giving my folks a hug during covid, and all I had out my window was deepest suburban hell.
Being separated from your family sucks, but to phrase it like it’s a hardship that outweighs being in space…? Only a few hundred people have ever experienced what they get to do. They’re advancing our species with real, substantive, impactful actions, which is more than any of us can claim. They’ll survive eight months without hugs.
They were going to be up there for a shorter time. Now they aren’t. They planned for an eight-day trip.
(Just gonna ignore the rest of the comment, huh?)
Dude that’s pretty unremarkable for military personnel. NLTs aren’t exactly set in stone, and Captains Williams and Wilmore are 58 and 61 respectively. This is not the first time they have had to deal with something like this. They’re safe. They’re not leaving their young children without a parent. They’re not any more out of touch with their families than we all were during COVID. And, lets be honest, their families have had years to get comfortable with the fact that they are SPACE SHIP TEST PILOTS. Of all the things that could go wrong, this is pretty damn minor.
I’m not sure how their being test pilots makes it any less horrible for them to be stuck somewhere for months when it was only supposed to be eight days.
Do test pilots not find being separated from their children as sad a thing as everyone else who has children? I am guessing, in general, test pilots want to be with their children as much as most parents do.
I’m not sure how you think this is horrible?
No seriously, I think there is a foundational difference between our perspectives here that is going to be really hard for you to overcome. For you, this situation would be awful. You’ve made that very clear. For me, and I am being 100% honest here, I would trade places with them in a heartbeat, and if I didn’t my family would never forgive me. My father might never speak to me again if he found out I’d turned down an opportunity like that, my partner might leave me. No, I really mean it.
There are different people in the world. The kind of people that become test pilots have families that have to have accepted the incredible danger inherent to the job. Astronauts are in the same situation. Imagine what it must be like to love an astronaut test pilot. That would be incredibly stressful, and I would be nothing short of thrilled that this was not a worse disaster.
Sorry… you think their kids would hate them if they turned down an eight-day trip to space that ended up lasting months?
“I wish I spent months without my mom/dad” is generally not something kids who aren’t in abusive relationships think.
Do you even have any kids?
Why are you being so combative about this? Not understanding how people could be at peace with this is disappointing, sure, but you’re endlessly trying to escalate this. Picking out one argument to attack from a stack of reasoned explanations, wholly ignoring the response to your last objection in favor of a new one that exaggerates the arguments made, approaching every new comment with a constant shifting of the goalposts.
“I wish I spent months without my mom/dad” is blatantly re-framing my comment from the context it was presented and which it is relevant to. But to respond: Personally, speaking as a once and future child, I would not be wishing to have ‘spent months without’ with my parent. But if their fear of potentially being deprived of my presence stopped them from going to space, I would be absolutely furious with their selfishness, and if they went on this mission I would be proud beyond my ability to express, of them and their work. And I would be terrified for them. But fear is a natural response that fades with practice, and although I would miss them, knowing they were safe and doing what they chose to do would be reassurance enough to last me eight months, even if I couldn’t speak to them.
Loving your family and wishing to hug your children? No outerspace mission for you!
Weak and pathetic. You should be willing to throw your family in a wood chipper at a moment’s notice for a chance to space, you ingrate gravity over.
Well it’s not that you wouldn’t “deserve” to be an astronaut, it’s not about entitlement. It’s that an astronaut is not the right job for you, you’d probably be happier in another role.