Why astronaut Suni Williams runs in space: a 14-billion-year odyssey

On June 5, 2024, astronaut Sunita Williams left Earth on an eight-day mission to the International Space Station. She's been there ever since. On March 12, 2025, NASA and SpaceX will launch a replacement crew to relieve her. For nine months, Williams' return home was uncertain but her time was never lost.

I.

SEPT. 6, 2024, 10:04 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 93 DAYS, 7 HOURS, 12 MINUTES

The Boeing Starliner whirs and detaches from the loading dock of the International Space Station. The spacecraft floats in the dark sky.

Sunita Williams peers out of the cupola inside the space station. From some 250 miles above China, she radios to Earth.

"She's on her way home."

The 16-foot-tall Starliner disappears. It carries two space suits. One belongs to Williams, the other to fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore.

The suits are empty.

***

AUG. 18, 2024, 1:05 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 73 DAYS, 22 HOURS, 13 MINUTES

Wearing a sky-blue shirt and black shorts, Williams floats over the treadmill at the International Space Station. Her dark hair hovers above her as the ISS flies by Egypt at 17,500 mph. She holds a white weighted harness, which displays a running bib with letters and numbers: "SUNI ISS" and "416." It's a nod to April 16, 2007, when she finished the Boston Marathon on the same ISS treadmill and became the first astronaut to run a remote marathon in space.

Williams looks up at a screen. Thousands of people, including her sister Dina Pandya, stand at the starting line of the 52nd Falmouth Road Race in Massachusetts. Williams had planned to run the seven miles with them in person. She'll be a ceremonial starter instead.

There's a glitch in her connection, though. The runners can hear Williams, but audio from Earth is not reaching her.

"This is a great race," she says. "It's an amazing time of the year to be in Massachusetts. Enjoy the lovely weather and the great course."

Tree-lined roads that lead to coastal views and a crushing hill await the runners on Earth. Views of walls and wires and pipes await Williams. She attaches the harness around her shoulders and hips, and buckles herself to the treadmill.

"It's going to be sort of crappy," she says.

She swings her arms and sets out. On Earth, she runs because she loves to. On the International Space Station, she runs because she must.

***

NOV. 6, 2024, 4:15 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 154 DAYS, 1 HOUR, 23 MINUTES

Mission Control Houston: ESPN, this is Mission Control Houston. Please call station for a voice check.

Aish Kumar: Station, this is ESPN, how do you hear me?

Suni Williams: Aish, we got you loud and clear. How us?

Aish Kumar: I can hear you great. [echo] Thank you so, so much for taking the time to speak with me today.

Five months ago, on June 5, Suni Williams boarded the Starliner, taking her to the International Space Station. She was 58. She expected to be back in eight days. She is 59 now. She doesn't know when she'll return. Suni's hair, once dark, is fading to gray. Earth is 250 miles away. Life goes on without her. Her husband walks the dogs. Her sister runs. Her mother ages. Here on the ISS, in a craft the size of a football field, she hovers in microgravity, circling Earth every 90 minutes. Some days go by quickly. Some days go by slowly.

NASA has granted me 20 minutes to talk to Williams. I want to know how she finds meaning in her mission and purpose in her time, now that she has lost control of both.

How any of us could.

There are 19 minutes and 45 seconds remaining.

***

FROM: Sunita Williams
SUBJECT: Refocus
SENT: Jan. 5, 2025

"I wonder what everyone thinks of time down there."

***

The life of Suni Williams

Sept. 19, 1965: Sunita Lyn Williams (ne Pandya) is born in Euclid, Ohio, to an Indian-American neuroanatomist father and a Slovenian-American mother.

1987: Williams graduates from the U.S. Naval Academy.

1988: Williams marries Michael J. Williams, whom she met at the Naval Academy.

1989: The Navy designates Williams a naval aviator. She accepts overseas deployments in support of Desert Shield and Operation Provide Comfort.

1993: Williams graduates from the United States Naval Test Pilot School.

1998: Williams enrolls in astronaut candidate training at Johnson Space Center.

Dec. 9, 2006: Williams launches to the International Space Station in the space shuttle Discovery. She brings a copy of the Bhagavad Gita.

April 16, 2007: Aboard the ISS, Williams finishes the Boston Marathon in 4 hours and 24 minutes, becoming the first person to run a marathon in space. She calls her sister, Dina, who runs the race on Earth. "We did it," the sisters say at the same time.

June 22, 2007: Williams returns to Earth after 192 days aboard the ISS.

July 14, 2012: Williams begins her second mission to the ISS.

Sept. 16, 2012: Aboard the ISS, Williams finishes the Nautica Malibu Triathlon in 1:48.33, using a treadmill and a stationary bike for the running and cycling and using the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device to simulate swimming strokes.

Nov. 18, 2012: Williams returns to Earth after 127 days aboard the ISS.

June 16, 2022: Williams and Wilmore are selected for the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner.

June 5, 2025: The Starliner launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Its destination is the International Space Station. Williams and Wilmore are buckled inside for an eight-day test flight.

***

How do you differentiate between eight days and eight months?

Oliver Burkeman, journalist and author of "4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals": So when I think about eight days, I think -- possibly wrongly, possibly very wrongly -- but I think that I could endure very many kinds of experiences for eight days, if I knew the eight days was coming to an end at eight days. Not every experience, but certainly many. Eight months suddenly catapults you over a boundary into...

Burkeman: Eight months suddenly becomes so, so big as to sort of, in some ways, be just like forever, you know what I mean? The thought of knowing that you were doing something for eight months, if it wasn't the absolutely optimum thing that you wanted to do in your life, is kind of terrifying to me.

---

II.

JUNE 6, 2024, 5:34 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 1 DAY, 2 HOURS, 42 MINUTES

Leaking helium, the Starliner docks at the International Space Station. Some of its thrusters have failed. Williams and Wilmore board the ISS.

***

JULY 10, 2024, 3 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 35 DAYS, 0 HOURS, 8 MINUTES

Standing in front of the American flag, Williams and Wilmore address the media via a live feed from NASA. "I feel confident that if we had to, if there was a problem with the International Space Station, we can get in our spacecraft and we can undock, talk to our team and figure out the best way to come home," Williams says. "I have a real good feeling in my heart that this spacecraft will bring us home."

***

JULY 17, 2024

Williams and Wilmore conduct tests to determine how plants absorb water in microgravity.

***

AUG. 18, 2024, 2 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 73 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 8 MINUTES

At Mile 5 of the Falmouth Road Race, Williams grows tired. Her scenery doesn't change. The repetition is annoying. Time and distance drag on.

She's run every day since she arrived at the ISS and joined Expedition 71. But this is hard. She misses the views the runners on Earth are enjoying at this exact moment.

Running the Falmouth race is her choice. Running on the ISS every day isn't a choice. She must work out two hours every day -- running, cycling and weightlifting -- no exceptions. Without the constant pressure of gravity, she can lose up to 20% of her muscle mass in two weeks. That number increases to 30% for stays longer than three months. Likewise, since her bones don't have to work nearly as hard without gravity, they lose 1-2% of their mass every month she stays in orbit. Without exercise, she would be unable to stand or walk when she returns to Earth.

On the ISS treadmill, Williams sweats, much like she does on Earth. But here the sweat doesn't drip. It forms a pool on her skin. She places a towel over the sweat and waits, allowing it to soak it up.

She brought only one pair of sneakers to the ISS. She hopes they will last.

***

What is it like as somebody who is both running and is watching another person run?

Butch Wilmore: The treadmill is actually in a path in one of the nodes, Node 3, so there's people floating over you.

Wilmore: And Suni, she's tough to float over, because you can't float through because there's not enough space. You gotta go over the top and it's kind of narrow. Suni throws her arms back when she runs, [laugh] and her elbows. She's popped me in the stomach a couple of times with that elbow coming back. And I hate to interrupt her run but [laugh] trying to get past her can be challenging when she's on the treadmill.

***

AUG. 24, 2024, 5 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 80 DAYS, 2 HOURS, 8 MINUTES

NASA administrator Bill Nelson announces that the Boeing Starliner will return to Earth without Williams and Wilmore. "The decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring the Boeing Starliner home uncrewed is the result of a commitment to safety: our core value is safety and it is our North Star," he says.

***

SEPT. 7, 2024, 4:01 a.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 93 DAYS, 13 HOURS, 9 MINUTES

With three parachutes slowing its descent, the Starliner lands at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. From the International Space Station, Williams watches it touch down on her iPad.

***

FROM: SUNITA WILLIAMS
SUBJECT: The relatives move in
SENT: SEPT. 15, 2024

"I think I mentioned the shell game began with the Starliner departure of last week, this week the arrival of Soyuz, which will then lead to a Soyuz departure in another week, then the arrival of Crew 9 Dragon followed by the departure of Crew 8 Dragon. It IS like a hotel up here. ... We had a little get-together. We had flat corn tortillas with refried beans, Russian pork, roasted peppers and olives. Pretty darned good. And in Italian fashion some of us had a late night coffee -- not an espresso del rossi, but still very yummy...WHY??? Because we all drank it out of Don [Pettit's] patent space cup. With this lovely, mathematically designed, tested and proven cup, you can sip your coffee while smelling it. Quite a join."

***

SEPT. 23, 2024, 8:36 a.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 109 DAYS, 17 HOURS, 44 MINUTES

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko departs the ISS aboard Soyuz, and Expedition 71 becomes Expedition 72. Williams takes over as commander. "The goal is really to keep harmony amongst the crew so we can collectively achieve our goals," she writes in an email to friends and family. "It is an honor to live and work here and make sure the toilet paper roll isn't empty for the next guy."

***

SEPT. 29, 2024, 9:30 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 116 DAYS, 6 HOURS, 38 MINUTES

Williams' ride back to Earth -- the SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon called Freedom -- docks at the International Space Station. American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov join Expedition 72. Dragon's return is scheduled for February 2025.

***

OCT. 1, 2024

Williams and Wilmore try on their SpaceX space suits, test audio and check their suits for leaks. They board the Dragon to make sure they fit in its seats.

***

SOMETIME IN OCTOBER 2024

A cargo ship arrives containing a New England apple. Williams has no idea who sent it. She takes a bite and savors the taste.

***

How would you describe the day you've had so far?

Suni Williams: It's been a lot of fun. We just had a cargo ship come up yesterday, and so we've been unpacking it and trying to get all the experiments out of it that need to come out pretty quick. And sort of just cleaning up, because whenever your neighbors move in or come over, there's always a little bit of a mess. And so, we've been trying to clean up a little bit.

***

OCT. 28, 2024, 11:20 P.M. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 145 DAYS, 8 HOURS, 28 MINUTES

Williams attends, via video, a Diwali reception hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House. "On this day, I specifically think about my father, who immigrated to the U.S. from India," she says. "He kept and shared his cultural roots by teaching us about Diwali and other Indian festivals. Diwali is a time of joy, as goodness in the world prevails. I am thankful to have grown up in a multicultural household where our parents encouraged us to seek opportunities and reach for the stars."

***

NOV. 5, 2024

Williams, wearing red socks that say "Proud to be American," poses for a photo with her crewmates to celebrate election day. She fills out her absentee ballot on the ISS. The ballot is encrypted and uploaded into the space station's computer system, and then routed to NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, which transmits it to its ground terminal in Las Cruces, New Mexico. A landline disseminates it to Mission Control in Houston, which transmits it to the county clerk's office for filing.

***

What are you guys thinking about, maybe more philosophical in nature, that you would like to share?

Suni Williams: It was a very trying summer. You know, there was a lot going on with Starliner. We were up here, so we weren't down on Earth talking to the engineers.

Williams: We've trained on this spacecraft for many years, and so we know a lot about it. Obviously, there were some things we didn't know. So I think that was one of those things that just makes you -- makes you wonder -- making sure everybody is checking out everything that they need to check out.

Williams: And in the end game, there were some unanswered questions, and we participated in some of those meetings as well. And when there's unanswered questions and we don't really know the answer as best as we can -- potentially because we ran out of time -- the decision was to leave us up here and have us come back on Dragon.

***

NOV. 6, 2024

The sun rises and sets 16 times. Same as every other day aboard the ISS.

***

A short history of space exploration

1543: Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus publishes "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium," which establishes the sun, not Earth, as the center of the universe.

1609: Italian astronomer, philosopher and mathematician Galileo Galilei creates a series of telescopes and observes the uneven surface of the moon, distant stars, Mercury, Venus, Mars, the rings of Saturn and moons of Jupiter.

1781-1930: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are discovered.

Oct. 4, 1957: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, Earth's first artificial satellite.

April 12, 1961: Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space. He orbits Earth once aboard Vostok 1.

July 16, 1969: American astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to walk on Earth's moon.

Aug. 20, 1975: Viking 1 launches and becomes the first spacecraft to land on Mars.

Jan. 25, 1984: In his State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan directs NASA to build a permanently manned international space station in the next 10 years.

1984-1993: The International Space Station is designed and constructed in the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe.

Nov. 20, 1998: The first segment of the ISS called the Zarya Control Module launches aboard a Russian proton rocket in Kazakhstan.

Dec. 4, 1998: The first U.S.-built module of the space station, named Unity Node 1, launches on its mission to merge with Zarya and become an orbiting laboratory.

Nov. 2, 2000: NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev become the first people to inhabit the International Space Station. Called Expedition 1, they spend four months aboard the ISS conducting experiments and tasks to bring the ISS to life.

Feb. 7, 2008: Columbus Laboratory, the European Space Agency's module, becomes a part of the ISS.

Aug. 25, 2012: Voyager 1, which launched on Sept. 5, 1977, becomes the first human-made object to cross the threshold of interstellar space.

Nov. 2, 2020: NASA celebrates 20 years of continued human presence on the ISS.

Jan. 31, 2022: NASA announces its plan to decommission, deorbit and destroy the ISS in 2031.

***

When did you become interested in time and the meaning of life?

Aracelis Girmay, poet: As a child I remember a few things. One, it's a formative experience for me to be around family, hearing them talk about stories of back home and people and places who were distant. Even in their deaths they were with us. My mom had objects that were her grandfather's, and this pan that was his, that he used, that when he passed somehow that object became him.

Girmay: And he worked for the trains -- the Santa Fe train. And even after he passed, my grandmother was living by the train tracks, and anytime the Santa Fe train would pass, she would call us to the window, and we would wave at him.

Girmay: And it wasn't until maybe 10 years ago I was driving and waving at a Santa Fe train, and I thought, for the first time in my life, "Oh, that's not -- that was never him." It was just a habit. All of which is to say it's always been striking to me to think about the distances.

Girmay: And I mean ancestral distances, but also physical, geographical distances that people carry and the ways that in a story or in a relationship to an object -- we can hold for a moment those things, like, the story, or the word, or the name, or photograph, or the train as a kind of prism through which we can experience multiple times at once.

***

A short history of timekeeping

3000 BCE: The Babylonians divide day and night into equal 12-hour periods. The hour is established as 1/12 of a day or night.

1500 BCE: The Egyptians develop sundials, which track time using the shadow of the sun.

1000 BCE: Water clocks and hourglasses track the passage of time in shorter increments.

1300s: Mechanical clocks powered by weights and wheels appear on towers and buildings.

1400s: The invention of the mainspring, creator unknown, spurs the development of portable clocks and neck watches.

1582: Galileo Galilei invents the pendulum clock concept but never constructs it.

1656: Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens creates the pendulum clock, which has an error of less than a minute per day.

1735: British carpenter-turned-clockmaker John Harrison creates the marine chronometer, a timekeeper to help sailors track their position by longitude.

May 31, 1859: Big Ben begins ticking in London.

1884: The globe is divided into 24 time zones at the International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. Greenwich Mean Time (local time in Greenwich, England) is recommended as 0 degrees longitude, the prime meridian.

1927: Canadian engineer Warren Marrison develops a clock that keeps time using the vibrations of a quartz crystal, which loses or gains a single second over three years.

1949: The United States' National Bureau of Standards creates the first atomic clock.

1969: Seiko releases the first quartz wristwatch.

1999: The first commercial mobile phones utilize GPS to display the atomic clock.

2024: Physicists at JILA on the University of Colorado campus make a breakthrough in the development of a nuclear clock.

III.

NOV. 7, 2024

On Earth, news outlets circulate a picture of Williams. "NASA's Sunita Williams' health deteriorates," one headline reads. She has lost a lot of weight, a report says. Another describes her as "jarringly gaunt."

***

FROM: Sunita Williams
SUBJECT: Busy Bees
SENT: Nov. 11, 2024

"I heard some funny rumor that some doctor was worried about me up here -- not eating enough, bad air (maybe he meant Hair), and other silly nonsense. Well, I am happy to report I am eating like a horse, probably lifting almost 200 lbs for squats and deadlifts, crushing interval running at 90% of my body weight and working bike circuits harder than I ever have before. So -- I am fine. No, I don't have any more tan lines to speak of, people fart a lot here adding methane to the air, and my grey hair looks a little like Cruella. I think you guys know me well enough -- I can deal with all that no problem (I have an older brother, a husband and a chocolate lab to thank for this farty air preparation) -- I am fine, so help me dispel that fake news...or just ignore it."

***

DEC. 17, 2024

NASA postpones Williams' and Wilmore's return to late March or early April, citing a delay in launching their replacement astronauts. NASA needs somebody to take over their experiments and chores.

***

What keeps you up at night?

Suni Williams: I was actually sleeping in this module that we're talking to you from, and it has a lot of experiments in it, and it creaks and moans and makes a little bit of noises every now and then, and I had to get used to being over here.

Williams: There's actually sleep stations in the middle of the space station behind us that are a little bit quieter, and I just moved in there recently, and -- I sleep a little bit better.

***

DEC. 23, 2024

Williams wears a headband with reindeer antlers. Wilmore sits atop a makeshift Rudolph. Williams floats candy canes into the air and records a video message that NASA shares. "From all of us to all of you, Merry Christmas," she says.

***

DEC. 31, 2024

The sun rises and sets 16 times. Same as every other day aboard the ISS.

***

A day in the life of Suni Williams

5:30 a.m. GMT: Suni Williams wakes up.

5:30-7:30 a.m. (approximate): Workout.

7:30-8 a.m.: Hygiene routine. To brush her teeth, Williams uses a vacuum-sealed water pouch with a nozzle. She squirts one drop of water onto the brush to wet it, sucks the water up, swallows. Places a dab of toothpaste on the brush, brushes. Sucks the remainder of the toothpaste off the brush, swallows.

8 a.m.: Daily planning conference with Mission Control in Houston.

9 a.m.-5 p.m.: Scientific experiments, station maintenance, technology demonstrations (one-hour lunch break fluctuates).

7 p.m.: Evening planning conference with Mission Control in Houston.

8 p.m.: Dinner with crewmates.

9:30 p.m.: Evening hygiene routine and bedtime. The ISS does not have any sinks, bathtubs or showers. She uses wet towels to wipe herself down and dry shampoo to clean her hair. She retires to her individual sleep station, orients herself up, down or sideways in a sleeping bag and floats off to sleep.

***

How does Judaism facilitate the bridge between the past and the future?

Rachel Zerin, rabbi: So much of Judaism is about holding onto tradition. And maintaining tradition while reinterpreting and adapting in the ways that make sense for where -- whatever place and time Jews have existed, right? Judaism is a many-thousands-year-old tradition.

Zerin: And so those anchors to the past are very deep. And in that sense there also is a different way of relating to time. So part of the rhythm of the Jewish calendar year is that we systematically read the Torah from beginning to end every single year.

Zerin: And as soon as we get to the end, we go right back to the beginning. So there's this sense that the past is always present with us, right? That we're always sort of reencountering and reliving these stories. Our holidays -- many of them are sort of anchored in these biblical stories.

Zerin: When we read from the Torah the Ten Commandments, we stand in synagogue. Normally we sit during a Torah reading. But for that moment we stand because our ancestors stood at Mount Sinai. So I think there is this attempt to keep that past alive.

***

Notable events, June 6-Dec. 31, 2024

June 17, 2024: The Boston Celtics win their NBA-record 18th championship.

June 18, 2024: Baseball legend Willie Mays dies at the age of 93.

Aug. 1, 2024: Williams' sister Dina celebrates her 62nd birthday.

Aug. 11, 2024: Sifan Hassan sets an Olympic record in the women's marathon, winning gold in 2 hours, 22 minutes and 55 seconds.

Sept. 19, 2024: Williams turns 59 years old.

Sept. 26, 2024: Hurricane Helene makes landfall in Florida.

Oct. 10, 2024: Millions of skywatchers across the globe behold the green, pink and red lights of the aurora.

Oct. 20, 2024: The New York Liberty win the franchise's first WNBA championship in its 27-year history.

Nov. 5, 2024: Donald Trump is elected the 47th president of the United States.

Dec. 14, 2024: Navy defeats Army 31-13 in a rivalry series that dates to 1890.

Dec. 29, 2024: Jimmy Carter, the first president to reach 100 years of age, dies.

IV.

JAN. 6, 2025

Williams trains for her first space walk in 12 years. She wears virtual reality goggles and prepares for the mission to go astray. "One other thing we do with this VR set up is practice flying back to the ISS with SAFER (Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue). This is a backpack/jetpack we put on the spacesuit, just in case we get disconnected from our safety tether and start floating away from the ISS," she writes to family and friends in an email. "This training essentially teaches us not to ever use this capability! Even with VR this is scary and can get your heart racing. But we have this capability and it is best to know all about it and how to use it."

***

JAN. 16, 2025, 11:30 a.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 224 DAYS, 20 HOURS, 38 MINUTES

Williams wears a white space suit and a dome helmet. Her suit is attached to a wall in the ISS, with wires protruding from the front of the suit. She hovers in a sitting position across from Nick Hague, who will accompany her on the space walk.

Oxygen is pumped into their bodies and nitrogen is pumped out to prevent decompression. Mission Control asks Williams to move her legs, then her arms, then her fingers. Don Pettit takes pictures. Williams bumps Pettit's foot with her palms, breaking into giggles.

Williams and Hague make their way to the airlock. They open the hatch and float into space.

Williams uses specialized equipment that looks like a hammer and a screwdriver. She installs patches over damaged light filters on the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer X-ray telescope. She replaces a reflector device on the docking adaptors. She checks the connector tools in the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. On Earth it'd be known as yard work.

Exactly six hours later, Williams and Hague return. Pettit opens the door. Williams moves her fingers around as Pettit and Wilmore hover around them to check their space suits' wires. Pettit helps Williams remove her helmet, unbuckling the belt under her chin.

Williams rubs her eyes with her left fingers, a tired smile on her face.

***

JAN. 27, 2025, 4:35 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 236 DAYS, 1 HOUR, 43 MINUTES

Via video call, Williams talks to the students of her high school, Needham High in Massachusetts. "I've been trying to remember what it's like to walk. I haven't walked. I haven't sat down. I haven't laid down. You don't have to. ... You can just close your eyes and float where you are right here."

***

JAN. 30, 2025, 6:09 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 239 DAYS, 3 HOURS, 17 MINUTES

Williams completes a five-hour, 26-minute walk in space, her second in a month. Today's walk puts her total tally, in nine walks over three missions, at 62 hours and six minutes -- the most by any woman in the world.

***

JAN. 31, 2025

The sun rises and sets 16 times. Same as every other day aboard the ISS.

***

The life of Jonathan the Tortoise

1832: A tortoise hatches in the Seychelles, an island off East Africa in the Indian Ocean.

1882: Sir William Grey-Wilson ships the 50-year-old tortoise to St. Helena, an island in the Atlantic Ocean. He introduces the tortoise to a patch of land outside the governor's residence called Plantation House.

1930s: Gov. Spencer Davis names the tortoise Jonathan.

1947: Queen Elizabeth II visits Jonathan.

1991: Jonathan is introduced to a male tortoise Frederik, who, along with another giant tortoise named Emma, becomes his mate.

1998: St. Helena introduces a five-pence coin featuring Jonathan.

Nov. 2022: St. Helena governor Nigel Phillips declares Dec. 4 Jonathan's birthday.

Dec. 3, 2022: St. Helena residents begin a three-day celebration of Jonathan's 190th birthday. He enjoys a special cake made of cabbage, carrots, lettuce, bananas and guavas.

2025: Jonathan, at 192 years old, is believed to be the oldest living land animal on Earth.

***

How do you perceive time when you're in the act of writing?

Aracelis Girmay: There's something about sitting down with a piece of paper and a pencil, or even just looking out of the window with a piece of paper and a pencil in front of me, but looking -- looking up.

Girmay: That it feels like a moment where I can slow things down in a way that I feel is rare in my life for all kinds of reasons. But I think I'm often moving fast. I have two young kids. But even before that I'd always worked many jobs at once. And so the paper and pencil and a window -- it feels like a moment of a frame where -- and I mean that kind of spatially, physically, but also where, like, I can slow down. I can have a thought.

Girmay: I'm always like, "Is that how to say it? Is that what I think? Is that true?" And so the poem feels -- the making of the poem feels like a non-ending relationship to a thought or an idea that could go on. You could go on revising. You could go on reading, and re-reading, and wondering.

Girmay: A lot of people think about or talk about poems as palimpsests, and, like, you've got these layers. But the perceptions that I'm carrying, or the feeling I'm carrying one day, and then when I return to the paper and make even if it's a small mark, like I change the comma, or I pull out a word, or I readjust something or push on the syntax, that you're collaborating with yourself across time.

***

The life of a mayfly

Hour 1-12: Larvae emerge from a water body and attach to a tree trunk. They hatch.

Hour 12-23: Males find other males and form a swarm. A female mayfly flies into the swarm and chooses a mate.

Final hour: The male flies off and dies after a single round of mating. The female goes to a water body and lays her eggs. She sinks into the water and dies.

V.

FEB. 11, 2025

NASA and SpaceX announce that the launch of Williams' replacement crew has been moved up by two weeks. A Dragon spacecraft called Endurance is ready. Four astronauts will blast off on March 12 from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. They will take over for Williams, Wilmore, Hague and Gorbunov. NASA's Steve Stich says: "Human spaceflight is full of unexpected challenges."

***

AUG. 18, 2024, 2:21 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 73 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 29 MINUTES

Williams finishes the Falmouth Road Race in 1:16. Faster than she wanted. She had hoped to complete the seven miles in 1:30 so she could finish in the same time it took the ISS to travel 26,250 miles in its orbit around Earth. She joins a video call with the race organizers. Sweat glistens from her forehead. She sticks her thumb up and smiles brightly.

Her running shoes survive.

***

NOV. 6, 2024
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 154 DAYS, 1 HOUR, 42 MINUTES

Aish Kumar: Thank you both so, so much. I truly appreciate your time.

Suni Williams: Well, thank you for the opportunity to talk to y'all, and go Navy, beat Army.

Butch Wilmore: Go Navy, beat Army. Go UT. Go Vandy. [laughter] Go Tennessee Tech!

Houston ACR: Station, this is Houston ACR, that concludes the event, thank you.

Mission Control Houston: Thank you to all participants. Station, we are now resuming operational audio communications.

The 20 minutes are up.

***

FROM: Sunita Williams
SUBJECT: Refocus
SENT: Jan. 5, 2025

"One thing we get asked a lot about is time up here. Is it different? Does it go by faster or longer? Do we age quicker or less?

To me it feels like a deployment, where time goes really quick at first -- like all of a sudden we have been here for over 200 days. Then it seemed to slow down -- around Christmas when we were hearing about everything going on down on Earth.

We have about 100 days more and that seems like a long time.

I wonder what everyone thinks of time down there. I know life goes on without us physically being there and that is great, but I feel a bit guilty for not being home to help take care of things.

I will be ready for the payback when I get home!

Mike you can sleep in and I will take care of the dogs -- and get rid of all the hair, sticks, dirt that these barnyard animals bring in the house.

Mom -- I promise you a road trip.

Dina -- I promise you an ocean swimming partner.

I am so looking forward to making up for all this time with all of you when we get back! But honestly, time is never lost, it is only enhanced by learning and sharing it with friends. Thank you friends for being patient with me...

Love, s"

***

A short history of the universe

14 billion years ago: An infinitely dense and extraordinarily hot Singularity expands and stretches.

Next 380,000 years: Darkness.

13.6 billion years ago: The Milky Way Galaxy is born from the collapse of gas, dust and dark matter.

4.6 billion years ago: A spinning cloud of dust and gas called the solar nebula collapses and flattens into a disk, forming the sun.

4.5 billion years ago: Leftover material from the nebula collides and clumps together and forms planets, including Earth.

3.8 billion years ago: Microbes, the first signs of life, appear on Earth.

540 million years ago: Life increases exponentially on Earth, including early mollusks, trilobites and sponges.

480 million years ago: Insects, ancestors of the mayfly, appear on Earth.

245 million to 66 million years ago: Dinosaurs rule Earth.

230 million years ago: Tortoises roam Earth.

7 million years ago: Hominins utilize bipedalism.

800,000 years ago: Hominins harness fire.

300,000 years ago: Homo Sapiens evolve in Africa.

100,000 years ago: Humans migrate from Africa to other continents.

10,000 years ago: Development of agriculture.

2200 BCE: Humans domesticate horses.

776 BCE: The first Olympics, in Olympia, Greece, features a running race.

1927: Georges Lemaitre publishes a paper explaining the origins of the universe, known today as the big bang theory.

***

You're a blip in the universe, really [laugh].

Oliver Burkeman: Thanks. [laugh]

How do you reconcile that with your own goals and the things that you want to achieve in your life?

Burkeman: This is such a fascinating topic to me, and I've written about this idea I frivolously call "cosmic insignificance therapy," right? The idea that there's actually something very freeing and liberating about the realization of what a blip each of us is.

Burkeman: There's something scary as well, I don't dispute that. But it's striking how many of us find it relaxing, which really tells you something very interesting about how self-centered we are the rest of the time, right?

Burkeman: We sort of default to the position that what we're doing is incredibly important, that the entire history of humanity was leading up to our lives. I think the closest I've come to reconciling one's own desire for meaning with that fact is that I just don't need to accept a definition of meaning that has cosmic significance as its standard.

Burkeman: So in the "Four Thousand Weeks" I'm quoting Iddo Landau, the philosopher. Culturally, we tend to have this definition of doing something meaningful that implies affecting a large number of people, or being remembered for years and years and years.

Burkeman: And that's a really quite cruel, as he puts it, definition of meaning to put on ourselves, because it almost means that, by definition, most of us can't have meaningful lives, right? Cause most of us can't be the most famous person in a generation, and most of us can't make the most important invention of the generation, or whatever.

Burkeman: And so I think maybe the answer really is ... maybe what we're really looking for is just a feeling of being alive rather than a meaning.

Burkeman: It's more that feeling of aliveness that you can often have when you're doing things that you know matter, even when they're not fun. Although sometimes they are fun. That's the thing that we can navigate by, instead of this kind of very grandiose idea of, "Is civilization going to be grateful to me a millennium from now?"

***

A speculative glimpse into the future

2032: Asteroid 2024 YR4 hits Earth, crashing into the Pacific Ocean and causing minimal damage.

2100: Greenland sheds ice at a rate faster than it has in the past 12,000 years, causing ocean levels to rise and the Earth to rotate more slowly.

100,000 years from now: A super volcano erupts, releasing 100 cubic miles of ash and lava and causing catastrophic destruction throughout North America.

1.35 million years from now: The star Gliese 710 approaches our solar system, triggering a comet storm that further depletes the human population.

7.8 million years from now: Human extinction, per The Doomsday Argument by astrophysicist Richard Gott.

50 million years from now: Africa collides with Eurasia to close the Mediterranean Basin, forming a mountain range similar to the Himalayas.

250 million years from now: Continents smash together to form one supercontinent, Pangea Ultima.

800 million years from now: Declines in carbon dioxide leave just single-celled organisms on Earth.

4.5 billion years from now: The Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies collide.

6 billion years from now: The sun engulfs and vaporizes Earth.

In 10^10^10^76.66 years: A new universe is formed.

VI.

MARCH 4, 2025, 4:55 p.m. GMT
MISSION TIME IN SPACE: 272 DAYS, 2 HOURS, 3 MINUTES

Courtney Beasley, NASA communications specialist: We'll go ahead and jump right into questions from our media. Just a reminder to press star-one when you are ready to ask your question. ...

Aish Kumar: Thank you guys so much for taking the time. My question is for Suni. Do you feel like you're saying one final goodbye to the ISS? And are you planning to leave anything personal behind?

Suni Williams: Oh, don't remind me. This might be my last flight. That's a little sad. I'm trying not to think about it too much because ... being in space is just pretty spectacular. And having the opportunity to come up here, I know we're very, very lucky. And having the opportunity to come up here three times has just been amazing. And maybe there might be some hide-and-go-seek for the next guys. Maybe they'll have to find something. I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to tell you where. They'll have to just find it.

Manuel Mazzanti, Exploracin Espacial: I wonder what the future holds for both of you. Are you both willing to return to space in the near future?

Butch Wilmore: Hey, we're going to the moon and Mars. That's what my plan is.

Suni Williams: I'll be right beside Butch if that's the case.

Courtney Beasley: Nick Nicholas on Instagram asks, what was the most exciting part of your mission?

Suni Williams: We have had some amazing aurora while we've been up here. The sun's been really active and it really puts you sort of in your place and you recognize that the universe is extremely powerful and what little part we are of it.

***

1986

Suni Williams, a 20-year-old midshipman, is mesmerized by the movie of the summer, "Top Gun." She loves Tom Cruise's character Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a fighter pilot who trains at an elite Naval weapons school. She wants to learn everything she can about space. She wants to explore the skies.

***

1983

Suni Williams, a 17-year-old from Massachusetts, wakes up before the sun and asks her mom to drive her to the Boston Marathon starting line. She hasn't qualified, but she wants to run it anyway -- as a bandit. Her mom drives her 13 miles to the starting line. At the halfway mark, Suni points to her sneakers and says they're bothering her feet. She takes them off and takes off down the street. She runs the remaining 12 miles shoeless.

***

1974