Suni Williams, a Nasa astronaut on the International Space Station, is healthy and not suffering from any medical problems, Nasa’s top medical officer said Thursday.
The unusual pronouncement was prompted by news articles suggesting that Williams was experiencing health problems during an unplanned extended stay in orbit. That in turn set off widespread rumors on social media.
Williams, 59, addressed the issue directly Tuesday during an interview with New England Sports Network. “I think there’s some rumours around outside there that I’m losing weight and stuff,” she said. “No, I’m actually right at the same amount.”
Williams is one of the two astronauts whose stay at the space station was stretched from eight days to eight months because of propulsion problems with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that took them there in June. While taking pains to insist that Williams and Butch Wilmore, the other astronaut, were not stranded, Nasa decided that Starliner would return to Earth empty and that Williams and Wilmore would join the space station crew until February. They are to head home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft instead.
A photograph that Nasa released in late September showed Williams and Wilmore making pizza on the space station. Williams’ face appeared sunken and thin. An article in New York Post last week fueled speculation, quoting an anonymous Nasa employee who claimed she had lost significant body mass.
The Post article said that Williams had been unable to consume enough calories to maintain her mass – the rigours of life in space include exercising a couple of hours a day to help maintain the astronauts’ bones – and that Nasa doctors had spent a month working with her to regain mass.
In an interview, Dr James D Polk, the chief health and medical officer for the space agency, said that was not true.
“I’ve known Suni 20 years, and I’ll tell you, Suni looks the same to me,” he said. “She’s in incredible health right now.”
Polk said all the American astronauts on the space station were doing well. During her video appearance Tuesday, and another Thursday, Williams did not appear emaciated.
