Chicago drivers were girding this week for yet more delays from the seemingly endless Kennedy Expressway construction project, after the briefest of winter pauses. But for a little perspective as you sit bumper to bumper, fuming, consider the delays faced by Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, veteran NASA astronauts.
They were supposed to be gone for a week to the International Space Station.
Instead, they were expected to splash down Tuesday night after a delay of nine months.
With apologies to the late David Bowie, 286 long days spent sitting in a tin can, far above the world. With a few space walks thrown in.
Even a spring snowstorm at O’Hare airport cannot compete with that.
Wilmore and Williams saw their June 2024 ride out, a Boeing Starliner capsule, return without them, because of a faulty propulsion system and helium leaks to boot. Thank heavens they did not have a health emergency as they worked and waited.
The patient astronauts’ long-anticipated ride back to terra firma (or, at least, the water off the coast of Florida) came courtesy of SpaceX, the remarkable rocket company founded by Elon Musk and we can all be grateful that nobody was able to mess with that Dragon 2 hypergolic propellant craft in the way that various criminals have been defacing Teslas of late. Whatever you think of Musk’s political activities on behalf of the Trump administration, all Americans can and should be glad that these astronauts could catch one of Musk’s jet-propelled Uber rides home.
So welcome back, brave Butch and Suni. We doubt you care whether you landed in the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America, as long your spaceship knew which way to go and got you both home safe and sound.
The world down here is pretty different from the one you left nine months ago.
Planet Earth still is blue, though. And there is plenty you now can do.
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