The world continues its obsession with NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.

While the former reiterates they weren’t ‘stranded’ aboard the International Space Station, the fact their eight-day mission turned into a nine-month stay became global news.

President Donald Trump called for Elon Musk to ‘go get’ them, with the pair putting pressure on NASA to push the Crew-10 relief mission forward.

Even that faced delays, as a planned March 12 launch was called off due to a hydraulics issue. A second launch was scuppered by adverse weather conditions, but finally, the Crew Dragon spacecraft blasted off on March 14, 2025.

Having docked with the ISS on March 16, there was a brief handover before Williams, Wilmore, and Crew-9’s Nick Hague Aleksandr and Gorbunov made the 17-hour journey back to Earth.

As the media descends on the personal lives of Williams and Wilmore, the same two questions keep being asked: How do you go to the toilet on the ISS and what do you eat?

Back when Yuri Gagarin was the first human to make it into space in 1961, many were disgusted to learn he consumed two tubes of beef and liver purée, followed by a tube of chocolate sauce for dessert.

Pizza is sure to be a favorite on the ISS (Instagram / @ISS)

It’s safe to say that astronaut diets have come a long way since then, and although there were concerns about the seemingly dramatic weight loss of Williams, NASA reiterated astronauts are on tightly controlled diets and constantly monitored.

You might be surprised to learn that you can still get some of your favorite food up there, and while it might not quite be a Double Decadence from Domino’s, the New York Post explained how Williams and Wilmore were able to eat pizza some 250 miles above us.

You can enjoy a cup of coffee up there, while the astronauts even tucked into a Thanksgiving banquet together.

One specialist familiar with the Starliner mission confirmed that while their intake of fresh produce is limited, their diets include the likes of breakfast cereal with powdered milk, roast chicken, and even shrimp cocktails.

Meals are developed at Space Food Systems Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, with the ISS stocking around 3.8 pounds of food for each astronaut, per day. Thankfully, there’s an additional stockpile for extended missions like Williams and Wilmore’s.

Meals are catered to each individual, ensuring they have enough calories, then reheated in the ISS’ food warmer.

Still, fresh food is in short supply due to limited deliveries. It’s not a case of going on Amazon and ordering up a bushel of apples. As the specialist explained: “There’s fresh fruit at first, but as the three months continues that goes away — and their fruits and vegetables are packaged or freeze-dried.”

Meat and eggs are pre-cooked on Earth, while dehydrated soups and stews are made with the station’s 530-gallon fresh water tank. Then again, making soup with your own recycled urine isn’t for everyone.

NASA continues to innovate with what we can consume in space, and while alcohol still isn’t allowed on the ISS and 2019 experiment saw a special Zero G Kitchen oven sent up there and let astronauts bake cookies in space.

Currently, neither Williams nor Wilmore have confirmed what space pizza tastes like.

After successfully undocking from the International Space Station this morning, we finally have an exact time that ‘stranded’ NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will land back on Earth after their nine month mission.

Technical delays left Williams and Wilmore ‘stuck’ on board the International Space Station (ISS) for 285 days in what was only supposed to be an 8 day venture.

Not only did the Boeing Starliner ship that they flew to the ISS in suffer issues, meaning that it had to return to Earth unmanned, but the SpaceX rocket that would then allow them to fly back home also fell victim to issues that seemed to persist until moments before takeoff.

Williams and Wilmore departed from the ISS on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft this morning (YouTube/NASA)

US President Donald Trump has made it a priority to bring the pair back home since returning to office in January, ordering SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk to ‘go get’ them both, and both have also insisted that the blame lies with the former Biden administration.

Regardless of these claims though the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket finally made it to the ISS on March 16, allowing the Crew-10 astronauts to undergo the necessary handover process with Williams and Wilmore, allowing them to begin their journey back home.

As reported by Al Jazeera, the Crew-10 Dragon ship finally departed from the International Space Station at 1:05 a.m. EST this morning, as shown in a livestream from NASA on YouTube.

Current estimates indicate that the ship will begin its deorbit burn at around 5:11 p.m. EST, and shortly after it will splash into the ocean off the coast of Florida at roughly 5:57 p.m. EST. (21:57 GMT)

It will then take about an hour for the crew – including both Williams and Wilmore alongside Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov – to be retrieved from the ocean, and the entire process will once again be livestreamed on YouTube, starting at 4:45 p.m. EST.

While the astronauts will understandably be desperate to return to their families, which is something they’ve made clear to be a priority for them, it’s unfortunately going to be a challenging return to normal life after spending so much time in space.

They will be immediately stretchered off to a medical facility where they will spend six weeks in physical rehabilitation. This is due to the dangerous reduction in muscle mass and bone density that living for a lengthy period of time in low gravity causes, as your body – including your heart – has to work far less as it’s not being constantly dragged down.

They will undergo a number of cancer related screenings as a precaution due to the work that Williams and Wilmore conducted surrounding ultrasounds and radiation, as they could be under significant risk.

It’s the end of an era, as NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are finally back on Earth. Their supposed eight-day mission to space turned into a 285-day stay on the International Space Station thanks to problems with their Boeing Starliner. Although the Crew-9 return vessel has been docked with the ISS since September 2024, Williams and Wilmore had to wait for the Crew-10 relief crew’s arrival to take over from them and Crew-9’s Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov.

After a couple of false starts, Crew-10 finally arrived on the ISS on March 16 and shared emotional scenes with Williams, Wilmore, and the rest.

Williams and Wilmore were finally back on Earth (NASA)

Williams and Wilmore had already sent their thanks to President Donald Trump and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, with the pair being vocal about wanting to get the astronauts back as soon as possible. Musk took it one step further and accused the Biden administration of ‘abandoning’ Williams and Wilmore up there for political reasons.

We were told that Williams and Wilmore would make a watery landing off the coast of Florida at 5:57 p.m. EST on March 18, while it was expected they’d be rushed off into a ‘brutal’ recovery regime due to their extended time in space.

With a successful landing on time, Williams and Wimore exited their Dragon craft aboard the Megan rescue vessel but were immediately taken away on stretchers to the private medial quarters.

It was all smiles as Sunita Williams was carried away (NASA)

Although it’s common practice for astronauts to be checked after returning from space, Williams and Wimore’s nine-month stay makes them more susceptible to the long-term side effects.

The current record for the longest time an American astronaut has spent in space belongs to Frank Rubio thanks to his 371-day mission from September 21, 2022, to September 27, 2023.

Still, there’s been much debate about the health of Williams and Wilmore, with the former particularly being in the news due to worries about her appearance. Simply put, the human body isn’t designed to spend long periods in space.

Williams had warned she’d lost the ability to walk properly, while a loss of muscle mass, potential weakening of the heart, and osteoporosis are all other possible side effects.

There’s also the fact that the weightlessness of space can cause the shape of your eyeballs to flatten, which can affect the retina and blood flow, leading to changes in how well they can see.

Perhaps the most concerning is astronauts being bombarded with excess radiation, meaning there’s a potential increase in cancer scares.

Despite being back on Earth, the next few weeks and months are sure to be crucial for Williams and Wilmore. They might think they’ve escaped the glare of the media, but something tells us their story has only just begun.

After spending over nine months in space you’d feel like you deserve a bit of a break, but things are far from over for ‘stranded’ astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, as NASA has revealed what’s next for the pair.

Williams and Wilmore was the victims of an unfortunate collection of technical issues, starting first with the Boeing Starliner that they flew into outer space in.

Shortly after reaching the International Space Station it was understood that the Starliner suffered issues with various leaks, faulty thrusters, and a valve that failed to close, leading to the ship returning to Earth unmanned for repairs.

They were then waiting for the SpaceX Crew-10 mission to change over with them, as NASA protocol requires there to always be an astronaut present on the iSS, with the previous team performing a handover so there are no gaps in information.

The SpaceX Crew-9 ship returned to Earth on March 18, landing into the ocean off the coast of Florida (Keegan Barber/NASA via Getty Images)

This led to them staying on board the ISS for a staggering 285 days – 277 days more than they were initially planned to be there – and they thankfully landed safely off the coast of Florida on Wednesday evening after a lengthy 17-hour journey from space.

Unfortunately for the astronauts who likely want to just return to normal life at this point, they had to be immediately stretchered off to a medical facility as spending time in space can have significant effects on your body, especially your muscle mass and bone density.

Concerning photos shortly after their landing also indicate that time at the medical facility is necessary for one of the pair, although both Williams and Wilmore, alongside their fellow astronauts Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov, were seen walking without assistance.

In terms of what’s next, they’ll now spend around six weeks at the aforementioned medical facility undergoing a ‘brutal’ physical rehabilitation program that will restore their muscles to a ‘normal’ state and allow them to readjust to living with gravity which can affect even basic human functions like walking.

Both stranded astronauts were stretchered out of the ship before being sent to medical facility (Keegan Barber/NASA via Getty Images)

It can take at least a few weeks before they’ll be medically ready for life on Earth again, but former astronauts have illustrated that it can take several months and even over a year in some cases before you begin to feel ‘normal’ again – especially after longer stays in space.

One major relief is that soon after they’ll be finally allowed to go home to their families and relax, as per Sky News, and while Williams has described the ISS as her ‘happy place’ there’s no doubt that she’ll be delighted to finally be back home.

For Williams at the very least this will also likely mark her last visit into outer space, as she was saddened to reveal the fact in the days prior to her return home.

“I don’t want to lose that spark of inspiration when I leave,” Suni detailed in an interview with the BBC, “so I’m going to have to bottle it somehow.”

Despite their nine month stay on the ISS being far beyond the recommended maximum of six months, Williams and Wilmore still didn’t come close to one other American astronaut who spend nearly 100 days longer in space than the pair.