Passage II

A Six-Month Stay in Space

When U.S. astronaut, Sunita Williams, left for her six-month stay at the International Space Station (ISS) in December 2006. The United States was not the only country tracking her voyage. Because her father had been born in India, many citizens of India also proudly followed Williams as she completed research about spaceflight.

[1] As a NASA flight engineer, Williams was assigned to conduct maintenance on the ISS, some of which needed to be performed outside the station. [2] Their spacewalk lasted over seven hours, during which they rerouted the temporary power system to a permanent one. [3] Before her first spacewalk in December 2006, Williams and her colleague, Bob Curbeam, spent hours preparing for the environment of space, which was to be sleeping in an airlock to help them adjust to a lack of air pressure. [4] Over the next three months, Williams conducted three more additional spacewalks to make repairs. [5] These brought her total spacewalk time to 29 hours 17 minutes, a record for women at that time.(23)

Williams also conducted experiments and educational demonstrations for NASA; however, her most publicized event involved a personal goal. Having qualified for the spring 2007 Boston Marathon before her voyage; she decided to run the marathon (during the actual Boston race) on the ISS treadmill, which is used by the astronauts to fight the physical effects of microgravity. To hold the nearly weightless runner in place, a harness fastens around the runner's hips and shoulders and connect to the treadmill with bungee cords and clips. Williams completed her run in 4 hours 24 minutes, becoming the first person to participate in a marathon while in orbit.

(26)At the 2007 International Astronautical Congress in Hyderabad, India, she spoke about the effects of spaceflight on the human body. Due in part to one's research, one day both men or women may be able to journey farther out into space.