STORY: :: Once-stranded U.S. astronauts Butch and Suni talk about rehab after nine months in space

:: Johnson Space Center, Houston

:: May 28, 2025

:: Butch Wilmore, NASA Astronaut

"I think initially we'll start from the very beginning, you know, pulling GS for 30 plus years. I don't have a great you know, I've got some issues in my neck. I can't turn my head all the way. But in space that goes away, you know, you don't have any stress on your body. No problem with my neck. We're still floating in the capsule in in the ocean, and my neck starts hurting while we're still, we haven't been extracted yet. So anyway, gravity stinks for a period and then that period varies for different people, but eventually you get over that neurovestibular balance type of issues and then your back is not used to holding up your structure. So the muscles tense up."

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:: Suni Williams, NASA Astronaut

"Yeah. So that's that was really the first month to 45 days of that. And then we graduated and, you know, back to normal. And I felt though honestly, I was still tired, like all the little muscles are getting reengaged. And so it kept me being like not being able to wake up. Like normally I like to wake up early in the morning until about a week and a half ago. Then I'm like up at four in the morning. I'm like, aha, I'm back. So, you know, I think all of that just takes a little while to get back to gravity. Just like Butch said, it's just a little bit of a readaptation and and then, you know, we're here and we're feeling fine."

Wilmore and Williams, who last year set off for an eight-day Starliner test flight that swelled into an nine-month stay in space, have had to readapt their muscles, sense of balance and other basics of Earth-living in a 45-day readaptation period standard for astronauts returning from long-term space missions.

The astronaut duo have spent at least two hours a day with astronaut strength and reconditioning officials within NASA's medical unit while juggling an increasing workload with Boeing's Starliner program, NASA's space station unit in Houston and agency researchers.

Propulsion system issues on Boeing's Starliner forced NASA to bring the capsule back without its crew last year and fold the two astronauts into its normal, long-duration rotation schedule on the ISS.

While normal ISS missions last six months, with some lasting longer in contingency plans, Wilmore and William's mission extension was fraught with technical uncertainty at a high-stakes moment for Boeing, making the astronaut duo's condition a global spectacle.