Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore should be handed plastic cups to drink instead of normal cutlery as they recover their muscle strength, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has said.
In an interview with NDTV, Tyson said that the two astronauts, who returned to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) after a nine-month delay, will need time to readjust to Earth’s gravity.
“There is no reason to think their muscles will not be able to hold them up… on the ISS, they have many ways to exercise,” Neil deGrasse Tyson told NDTV.
“The difference is… when you spend this much time being weightless, your ability to orient for what is ‘up’ and ‘down’ is compromised because you never had to use these tools of the inner ear to establish ‘up’ and ‘down’ in space. Now I haven’t been in space… but I have spoken to astronauts, friends of mine, who have spent a lot of time there, and they say typically they will recover within a week…” he added.
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Tyson further warned against handing glass cutlery to the two astronauts.
“… if you hand them a glass, they just let go (because their muscles are weaker). So, make sure the first few beverages are in a plastic cup,” Tyson told NDTV with a smile.
Speaking about the extended stay of Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore at the ISS, Tyson said that he was never worried about their safety or about them returning home.
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“They are professional astronauts… they are selected not just because they are physically fit but also because they are emotionally fit,” the astrophysicist said.
“And when you are emotionally fit, things like, ‘okay, instead of eight days it’s nine months’… you don’t see them freaking out or reacting in some way that would jeopardise the safety of the crew. So that’s why I was never worried… even if everybody else was. At no time did I have sympathy for them.” he added.
Sunita Williams’ journey
An eight-day mission for Sunita Williams to the ISS was extended for months after her Boeing space flight developed technical issues.
Williams and Wilmore bid farewell to the ISS, their home since last June, departing aboard a SpaceX capsule alongside two other astronauts.
The capsule undocked from the space station on Tuesday and splashed down off the Florida coast on Wednesday morning after clocking 286 days in space. This was Williams’ third space flight, and she clocked a cumulative 608 days in space.
