| Last June, veteran NASA astronauts Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore were launched into space on Boeing's Starliner capsule, heading for the ISS. Their visit was supposed to last about a week. But the Starliner had helium leaks both before takeoff and while it was docking. So in August, NASA decided that the astronauts would not return home on that capsule. Instead, they would be brought back by SpaceX, but this would not happen until at least February. After Halloween, a photo of Williams in a makeshift pirate costume raised alarms in media outlets about her health, since she appeared to have lost a significant amount of weight while in orbit. The New York Post called her "jarringly gaunt, with sunken cheeks and a noticeably thinner frame."  Suni Williams wears a pirate's eye patch to celebrate Halloween in 2024. NASA quickly pushed back, saying that the astronauts were healthy. Williams herself said that she'd been exercising aboard the ISS and hadn't lost any weight. Now that Williams, 59, and Wilmore, 62, have finally returned, we may have a chance to learn more about the impact of such a long and unexpected journey in space. The original plan, which called for the two to stay in space for just over a week, wouldn't have presented significant health concerns, according to Shenhav Shemer, associate professor at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, who has done research on muscle atrophy in space. "An eight-day mission may result in temporary muscle loss, but this atrophy is typically totally reversible," she said.
A trip lasting nine months is another story. Such a long mission "poses a much greater risk of long-term muscle atrophy and strength loss, which are often impossible to fully reverse," said Shemer. The higher risks are "likely even more so for women than men," she said, adding that several studies suggest that women lose muscle mass at a faster rate than men when exposed to conditions of microgravity. "Women have lower baseline muscle mass, testosterone levels and bone density, all of which make muscle maintenance more challenging in low gravity," said Shemer. The US space agency has researched how the human body reacts to time spent in orbit, most notably with identical twins Mark and Scott Kelly, who both were astronauts. During Scott's nearly yearlong voyage on the ISS in 2015 and 2016, when the twins were in their early 50s, researchers compared the long-term effects of space on his body to the physical condition of Mark, who remained on Earth. Mark later became a US Senator from Arizona in 2020. One of the visible changes in Scott was that he became almost 2 inches (5 centimeters) taller on the flight since, as Mark explained to NPR in 2016, "in space without gravity, everybody stretches." Once back on Earth, Scott soon returned to the same height as his brother. NASA's Twins Study, which was the Kelly brothers' idea, provided data on genetic and bodily changes that occur in space that will help the space agency plan for future multiyear missions. While Williams and Wilmore were well enough to travel to Houston on Tuesday night, the aftereffects of their monthslong space stay remain to be seen. But their saga highlights the need for more research at a time when President Donald Trump has pledged to have Americans land on the surface of Mars, a round-trip journey that could take years. "There is not much research on space-related muscle wasting," said Technion's Shemer. "We don't know enough about it." — Bruce Einhorn Subscribe to Business of Space: Bloomberg's inside stories of investments beyond Earth, from satellite networks to moon landings. Delivered weekly. | 
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