Geek Habitat

Poor Heide! Twelve days in space, including a grueling spacewalk and an added day in space with hours of robotics work, and then press junkets when they get back on the ground. In case you missed it, STS-115 Astronaut Heidemarie M. Stefanyshyn-Piper passed out twice during a “Welcome Home” ceremony in Houston.

Since I’m lazy, here’s what I wrote in an email to my Mom, who “broke” the story to me. I’ve been on a CNN boycott of sorts ever since all the news started to eerily revolve around pregnant women getting knifed, newborns stolen, and now, one that died apparently after someone cut her womb open and removed her unborn baby (which died as a result.)

Anyway, Heidi shouldn’t feel too embarassed. Space travel is serious stuff, and that’s just the “zero G” affects, much less the strenuous activities this Shuttle crew performed thorughout their twelve day mission!

I didn’t realize they lost blood volume… Heidemarie was on one or two of the long spacewalks during the mission, so in addition to being weightless she was also performing hours of strenuous tasks in the pressurized spacesuit — basically like SCUBA diving for half a day at a deep depth *while* doing advanced mathematics and assembling a complex puzzle. She probably hadn’t had proper sleep since they landed, either… and their last day in space was a long one since they did 6 hours of robotics work to ensure the Shuttle’s heat shield was not damaged (debris strike potential, etc.)She’s probably not the first astronaut to faint/pass out, and probably not the last either. I like how her crewmates caught her both times and lowered her… those folks have worked together for 4+ years and can read each other like clockwork now. - Shannon