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ASTRONAUT BUTCH WILMORE, WHO WAS STUCK ON THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION FOR 9 MONTHS SAID HIS PAIN DISAPPEARED IN SPACE - BUT RETURNED AS SOON AS HE SPLASHED BACK DOWN ON EARTH 22:21, 29
May 2025Updated 22:30, 29 May 2025 Astronaut Butch Wilmore said he felt better when he was stranded in space - because ditching gravity cured his bad neck. He could not turn his head to the
side when he took off on last year's mission to the International Space Station. As soon as he arrived in micro-gravity the pain went. Butch, 62, was only supposed to stay for eight
days but ended up stuck for nine months due to technical trouble with the spacecraft due to bring him back to Earth. He said he never had any neck issues when he was in space where "you
don’t have any stress on your body". But as soon as he and fellow astronaut Sunita Williams splashed down on Earth his pain came back. “We're still floating in the capsule in the
ocean and my neck starts hurting,” he said. Article continues below “We still hadn’t even been extracted yet.” The pair completed 45 days of rehab to rebuild muscles, balance and basic
terrestrial functions following their return from the station 250 miles above Earth. They were out through strength and reconditioning exercises by NASA’s medical unit for two hours a day.
Butch said returning to gravity ‘stinks for a period’ which ‘varies for different people’. But he is now back in pre-launch shape. Sunita, 59, experienced space lag - fatigue and tiredness
as her muscle strength returned which left her struggling to wake up in the morning. But she has now fully recovered. “It's been a little bit of a whirlwind,” she said. “Then I'm
up at four in the morning and I'm like, ‘aha…I'm back’.” Experts say the human body, which evolved over millions of years in the gravity of Earth's surface, was not meant for
space travel. The absence of gravity triggers an array of physical effects over time such as muscle weakness. Former NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao said hard foot tissue disappears - making it
painful to walk. “You basically lose the thick part of the skin on your feet,” he said. “You kind of have baby feet when you come back. “The foot calluses come back very quickly.” Leroy, 64,
who flew on three Space Shuttle flights and lived aboard the 250-mile-high ISS for six months in 2004, said returning astronauts can suffer dizziness and nausea. “To me it feels kind of
like having the flu,” he said. Astronaut Terry Virts, 57, a former space station commander, said: “I felt really heavy and really, really dizzy.” As a result of their extended stay on ISS
Butch and Sunita celebrated Christmas in space and every day witnessed 16 sunrises and sunsets as it orbited the Earth every 90 minutes at 17,500mph. Article continues below That meant they
rang in the new year 16 times. _FOR THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS AND STORIES FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE FROM THE DAILY STAR, SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTERS._