NASA astronaut Sunita Williams has been trending on social media ever since she extended her stay in space after Boeing Starliner spacecraft faced issues. In one of her past interviews, Sunita had revealed how she decided to become a pilot after watching Tom Cruise’s film Top Gun. During a visit to India back in January 2018, Williams spoke to school students and discussed her journey and the different challenges she saw in her career.
“As a pilot, I wanted to fly jets because ‘Top Gun’ had just come out, and it seemed cool, but I became a helicopter pilot instead. My path wasn’t straight, and it wasn’t until my mid-twenties, after attending test pilot school and meeting astronauts, that I realized I had some of the same qualifications they did. That’s when I thought, ‘Maybe this is a path I can take,’” she said.
During the interaction, Sunita also revealed how her love for animals helped her turn to veterinarian fare. As Sunita had explained, physiological changes in space can be fascinating to observe. She said, “Calluses on your feet disappear because you don’t walk, and I noticed my fingernails and hair grew faster. Without gravity, some wrinkles on your face might temporarily smooth out due to fluid shifting upwards. Your spine also expands because there’s no pressure on the cartilage between your vertebrae, making you slightly taller in space. However, these changes reverse once you return to Earth, and gravity takes over again. You shrink back to your normal height, your back might ache a bit”.
She further revealed that in space bones start to lose density quickly and there is also muscle mass loss. Sunita said, “To counteract this, we exercise rigorously with specialized equipment. We run on treadmills with harnesses to simulate gravity and lift weights to maintain muscle mass, particularly in the hips and legs. We also use exercise bikes for cardiovascular fitness. After landing, it takes about 24 to 48 hours for the fluid balance to normalise, allowing us to resume physical activities”.
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