She's Logged More Space-Walk Time, And More Hours In Space -- Than Any Woman, Ever: Suni Williams Reflects On Her Record-Breaking NASA Career...

To be certain, she is already a true American icon -- of space science. And she rode to the ISS on one of the most hair-raising missions (you see what I did there?!) ever flown (at least since Apollo 13), in June of 2024 -- as her Boeing built Starliner capsule had thruster malfunction issues, coming in for the docking maneuver. Her fellow pilot, Butch Wilmore, expertly flew manual for a chunk of the approach, using other thrusters to compensate for the BO ones. That's all detailed in the below.

She talks a fair bit about the minute-to-minute on that episode, and her space-walks -- as well as the long time (over a year and quarter, across her career!) spent in orbit, and the physical rehab needed, afterwards. . . on this podcast. Do give it a listen -- but here's a bit:

. . .NASA and Boeing witnessed issues with the spacecraft thrusters on June 6 as Starliner approached the space station. Engineering teams reviewed a collection of data, conducted a variety of testing, hosted independent reviews with agency propulsion experts, and developed various return contingency plans. The uncertainty in data did not meet the agency’s safety and performance requirements for human spaceflight, so NASA decided to return the Starliner safely to Earth uncrewed and move Butch and Suni to return on the SpaceX Dragon as part of Crew-9. Starliner undocked without the two astronauts and landed at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico on September 7.

Nick Hague and Alexander Gorbunov launched September 28 on the Crew-9 mission with two empty seats to return with Butch and Suni later aboard Dragon. The quartet remained on station until April 2025 as part of the space station’s mission of research and discovery. Butch and Suni conducted more than 150 experiments and logged over 900 hours of research. Suni Williams set the record for the most cumulative spacewalking time by a woman at a whopping 62 hours and 6 minutes.

These NASA astronauts are among the few humans to pilot a human-rated spacecraft for the first time. Much was learned from the flight test that is leading to continued work on the commercial spacecraft. . . .

Now you know -- and no, Manchurian Cantaloupe. . . she is not blonde, or blue-eyed. Her ancestors are not. . . from one of what you called "the good countries". She is just a purely. . . American HERO!

One we all are immensely proud of.

Out.

नमस्ते