The Mental Toll of Unexpectedly Spending Months in Space

The longest eight days Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams ever spent turned out to last more than nine months. On June 5, 2024, the two NASA astronauts launched aboard the maiden mission of Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft for what was supposed to be a short shakedown cruise to the International Space Station (ISS), before turning around and heading home after just over a week. A veteran of two long-duration station rotations, Williams had spent a cumulative 322 days in space before her June launch. While to all appearances she has always thrived in her off-planet work, she was excited about this planned quickie mission.

“We want to go and get back as quickly as possible so they can turn our spacecraft around and also take all those lessons learned and incorporate them into the next Starliner,” she told TIME in a conversation before launch.

But that was not to be. Thruster problems and helium leaks aboard Starliner led NASA to conclude that the spacecraft was not fit to carry the astronauts home. Instead the ship left the station and splashed down uncrewed, leaving Wilmore and Williams to join the station rotation, living and working aboard the ISS until a fresh SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft arrived to take them home. After much anticipation, that ship docked with the station on March 16 and the two astronauts climbed aboard for an ocean landing later today, March 18, a full 278 days after they were originally scheduled to depart the ISS.

So what kind of emotional adjustment did Williams and Wilmore have to make as they went from overnight guests to long-term residents aboard the station? And what will the reacclimation to life on Earth be like after so much time away from home and family—and for that matter from sunshine, fresh air, and the simple fact of gravity?

Ever since the first astronauts and cosmonauts went aloft, they’ve been having to make that through-the-looking-glass transition between terrestrial and extraterrestrial living, and the results have been sometimes comical, sometimes surreal.

In 1965, astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell spent a then-record two weeks orbiting Earth in their Gemini VII spacecraft. Lovell recalls being belowdecks aboard the recovery vessel USS Wasp shortly after splashdown and being evaluated by a NASA psychologist. Lovell was drinking coffee and had a spoon in one hand. Meaning to put it down, he instead simply released it a foot above the table, leaving it to fall with a clatter. The psychologist looked at him curiously, and Lovell just shrugged. After a fortnight in zero-g he was accustomed to letting go of objects in mid-air and having them accommodatingly float where they were.

In 1971, astronaut Dave Scott had a more otherworldly experience. The commander of Apollo 15, Scott walked on the moon, returned to Earth, and a few days later was feted by his neighbors at a welcome-home cookout. Standing in his back yard, wellwishers circulating, he looked up at the sky where a bright moon was shining. “A week ago,” he thought incredulously, “I was there.”

Before Wilmore and Williams make the adjustment of returning to Earth, of course, they had to prepare themselves for leaving it in the first place, and that was a process they were at least partly denied. Training for a long-duration space mission is equal parts physical and mental and it’s that mental piece—saying goodbye to all earthly people and things for half a year or more—that they missed out on, instead training for just an eight-day mission. That comes at a price.

In 2015, TIME visited Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to film the documentary series “A Year in Space,” about astronaut Scott Kelly’s near 12-month stay aboard the ISS. Just two days before Kelly launched from Baikonur, TIME spoke to astronaut Jeffrey Williams, part of the back-up crew, who would have flown in Kelly’s place if he were unable for some reason to go. He confessed that if that day, 48 hours before liftoff, Kelly was suddenly scratched from the flight, it would be a challenge for him to get up to speed mentally since there is simply no substitute for having fully and wholly prepared for the actual fact that he would be leaving Earth for a year.

Retired astronaut Mike Massimino, a veteran of two shuttle missions, says that missing family was likely the hardest mental challenge Wilmore and Williams faced. “Although they love their jobs and are grateful for the opportunity, there still is the heart tug of being away from home for so long,” he says.

Still, to all appearances at least, Wilmore and Williams quickly fit into the ISS life cycle—at least if NASA livestreams of the pair at work both inside the station and during spacewalks were any indication.

“Suni has just oozed such joy for the past eight months,” says retired astronaut Marsha Ivins, a veteran of five space shuttle missions and a friend of both Wilmore and Williams. “It’s infectious to watch her.”

“We came up prepared to stay long, even though we plan to stay short,” Wilmore said in a recent air-to-ground press conference. “That’s what we do in human space flight.” 

“All career astronauts know the risks involved in human spaceflight, long or short duration, and they accept those risks when they strap into the rocket for launch,” says Ivins. “A large part of our training is to learn to deal with the unexpected, the off-nominal, the contingency scenarios, and still get the job done.”

Coming home will present different challenges. “The toughest thing about returning to Earth after many months in space is adapting to gravity,” says retired astronaut Terri Virts, a veteran of two space flights, including one long-duration stay as ISS commander. “The grueling rehab program NASA put me through was key to my quick adaptation back to my planet. The first few days weren’t fun, but I was religious about doing my daily workouts and I was back to driving and normal daily life much more quickly than I expected.”

The mental part—as Apollo 15 Commander Scott experienced—is critical too. “It’s important to get back in ‘Earth mode’ from a psychological perspective,” says Virts. “For me, it was like a light switch: one day I was living in space, and as soon as I got back to Houston, I was just back to my normal life. It’s really important to have goals and things to look forward to down here, as you may or may not get another chance to fly in space.”

It’s way too early to say if Wilmore or Williams will fly again or whether their extended stay aboard the ISS will be their last trip off the Earth. Astronaut Peggy Whitson holds the U.S. record for most cumulative days in space, at 675. Williams is now in the number two spot at 608 days, and Wilmore has logged a very considerable 464. That might be more than enough for any mortal—astronaut or not. If Wilmore and Williams indeed step away from space, they will do so having distinguished themselves in, as Ivins puts it, the most off-nominal of missions.

“Suni and Butch accepted the unexpected extension to their mission with such grace and humor,” she says. “Their demonstration of flexibility, adaptability, and optimistic versatility in folding seamlessly into the on-board crew is exactly what one should hope for from a career astronaut and makes me even more proud to call them my friends.”