In a YouTube video published by NASA, children sit in the legs crossed in a gymnasium of the primary school of Sunita L. Williams in Needham, Massachusetts. You can see them waving their little hands to the camera, which radiates the image about 250 miles above the earth to the international space station.
They spoke in December with none other than Sunita Williams, the homonym of the school and a astronaut living on the space station.
She should have already been at home. A series of technical failures has extended a mission of eight days to nine months, leading certain press organizations and politicians to play tension and blame.
Why we wrote this
A story focused on
A story grew up that two astronauts were “blocked” in space. But their training and their character can tell a story of adaptability and strength.
But Ms. Williams' livestream with these young students gave a glimpse of another side of the saga.
Suspended in microgravity, Ms. Williams beats around a plush Wildcat, the school mascot. He is asked how astronauts celebrate their birthdays on the space station.
“Of course, we sometimes have to work, but the crew on board is trying to make it quite special, and we have become good enough to make cakes here,” she said. They use pudding for frosting and cinnamon buns for the cake.
Her birthday, which came in September, coincided with international discussions as a pirate day, she adds.
A floating astronaut on a leash escape a convincing “arggghh”.
Astronauts recognize that it has been difficult to be unexpectedly distant from the family for so long. But their experience does not correspond to the headlines by saying that Ms. Williams and Butch Wilmore were “blocked” or President Donald Trump declaring on social networks that astronauts had been “abandoned in space”.
Now a mission is preparing to bring them back, Maybe later this week.
Their journey, towards some who followed him closely, reveals less on a mission of NASA which went wrong and more on the character of resilience.
Isolation and confinement
Isolation and isolation are among the main psychological challenges that astronauts can face, explains Lawrence Palinkas, professor of public health at the University of California in San Diego. And plan changes, like the extended stay for Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore, can make these challenges more difficult to take up, he said.
When a few people are stuck with each other, trivial behavior – such as someone chews their food or makes chores – can become a source of irritation. Astronauts also lack intimacy. They are constantly surrounded by crew members, monitored by control of the mission and are expressed with journalists, classrooms and researchers.
At the same time, although they can speak with the family during the day, they are physically isolated from those they like the most.
“If something unlanned or unexpected happens, a medical emergency, for example, or the death of a loved one, unable to be there physically maybe a source of stress,” said Dr. Palinkas.
NASA's health and performance health and performance unit is working to reduce stress. In 2004, NASA employees orchestrated a video call to an astronaut to see his newborn baby. And, in 2003, they helped a marriage to proceed as planned while the future husband was in space. Wedding photos show his wife holding a life -size cardboard cutting of the astronaut.
The unit also helps to choose resilient astronauts, explains Ido Mizrahy, director of the 2023 documentary “Space: The longest goodbye”.
Mr. Mizrahy says that Al Holland, who has been NASA psychologist for decades, looked for people with “this innate desire to explore, and who helps to appease itching and the pain and other things that can be really, really difficult to support for others.”
ISS astronauts must also be able to summarize the reverse, he said. “Suddenly, it's like failing most of the time. Everything is difficult. Going to the bathroom is difficult. Being far from your daughter is difficult.”
“There was a certain sorrow to be at home”
The most difficult aspect of SpaceFlight for some astronauts can come back to Earth, not remaining to the mission longer than expected.
The former astronaut Cady Coleman, the author of “Sharing Space: An Astronaut's Guide to Mission, Wonder and Making Change”, does not fear that Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore are “blocked” or who need “rescue”. She knows them.
In fact, she says: “They would not have had this opportunity” for an extended stay in space, “and then it was so great that they did it.”
In recent years, she said, their mission has been to transport a shuttle to and from the space station, spending only about eight days at a time, without having the chance to live there and have experiences. And the space, adds Ms. Coleman, is “Happy Place” by Ms. Williams.
Ms. Coleman went several times several times and was presented in “Space: The long longest”. Being up there, she says, “I felt like making sense.” When the time comes for her to come back, part of her wanted to stay longer.
She recognizes how nice it was to find her family. But “there was a certain sorrow to be at home,” she said.
“The astronaut,” says Mizrahy, “leaves behind an experience difficult to put in words and must now return to normal stuff, like preparing dinner and watching television.”
However, after adapting to life on earth, astronauts can end up with lasting psychological resilience, explains Dr. Palinkas. In space, they had to count on others, stay flexible and mix extreme isolation and confinement.
He says that many come back with the conviction that “if I can manage this, I can manage anything.”
“Suni is a living example of updated dreams”
In Needham primary school, the story is the opposite of what dominated the news cycle.
“It is unexpected, but she is trained for that, and she has provisions on the space station, and she does something she loves,” said Kiana Brunson, the director, says she and other adults tell children.
In 2017, the school was appointed after Ms. Williams, who graduated from the public school district in 1983. Ms. Williams provided a visit to the near future. Ms. Brunson calls Ms. Williams a “natural teacher”. When she has passed in the past, she enters different classrooms, warmly engaging students of all ages.
“Suni is a living example of updated dreams,” says Ms. Brunson. “When you are a child, you have these grandiose dreams of jobs and things you could do in this life.”
Ms. Brunson says that Ms. Williams shows children that they can also do something “spectacular”.
