Stranded NASA Astronauts May Develop Baby Feet, Struggle With Bone Density After 9 Months In Space

Last Updated:March 16, 2025, 10:56 IST

After spending nine months in microgravity, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore may face muscle atrophy, bone density loss, and "baby feet," making walking difficult upon their return to Earth.

Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams (Photo: AP)

Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been in the Space Station (ISS) for nine months, are likely to face difficulty walking or develop ‘baby feet’ upon their return to Earth.

On March 15, the replacements for the two stuck astronauts were launched to the Space Station, as Williams and Wilmore need a relief team to get to the space station before they could check out.

Their arrival is expected on March 19.

SUNITA WILLIAMS, BUTCH WILMORE MAY FACE DIFFICULTY WALKING

Williams and Wilmore would likely have developed a condition known as ‘baby feet’, thus making it difficult for them to walk.

This typically refers to the development and characteristics of a baby’s feet, including their initial softness and cartilage-based structure, and potential for foot deformities like clubfoot or metatarsus adductus.

In microgravity, without the continuous load of Earth’s gravity, the tissues that makeup bones reshape themselves. Bone cells readjust their behaviours—the cells that build new bone slow down, while the cells that break down old or damaged bone tissue keep operating at their normal pace so that breakdown outpaces growth, producing weaker and more brittle bones.

For every month in space, astronauts’ weight-bearing bones become roughly 1 per cent less dense if they don’t take precautions to counter this loss.

Muscles, usually activated by simply moving around on Earth, also weaken because they no longer need to work as hard. This loss of bone and muscle is called atrophy.

Numerous researchers have dug deeper into the mechanisms and contributing factors of microgravity-induced muscle and bone atrophy, focusing on the right combination of diet, exercise, and medication to keep astronauts healthy during missions and when they return to Earth or set foot on the Moon or Mars, according to NASA.

Each astronaut aboard the space station engages the muscles, bones, and other connective tissues that comprise their musculoskeletal systems using Earth-like exercise regimens. Crews exercise for an average of two hours a day.

SUNITA WILLIAMS, BUTCH WILMORE TO RETURN TO EARTH

As Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore return to Earth, the newest crew, including NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov, will spend the next six months at the space station.

While McClain and Ayers are military pilots, the other two are former airline pilots.

Sunita and Butch’s extended stay has been hardest, they said, on their families — Wilmore’s wife and two daughters, and Williams’ husband and mother.

Besides reuniting with them, Wilmore, a church elder, is looking forward to getting back to face-to-face ministering and Williams can’t wait to walk her two Labrador retrievers.

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