What the stranded astronauts have missed out on

Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore — who famously test-flew a Boeing Starliner spaceship to the International Space Station, and who have been stuck on board since their arrival June 6 — are making the best of their time there. They have helped out with experiments, iced Christmas cookies in microgravity and worked out three hours a day to prevent loss of bone density and muscle mass.

First their return was postponed to September, but NASA wisely decided to send back their troubled Starliner ship uncrewed. Then it was delayed to February, when a new crew was due to arrive. Now, NASA has decided to send the new crew no earlier than late March. It’s not that Williams and Wilmore aren’t hardy veterans of spaceflight. They can handle this stint. Other astronauts have stayed a couple of hundred days on the space station. But this was a planned 10-day excursion that will now last nearly 10 months if not longer. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, they will have missed earthly summer, fall and winter — and probably the start of spring 2025.

Think of all the cultural touchstones since June that they couldn’t be part of on Earth. They couldn’t make it to the final run of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour through Europe, then Florida, New Orleans, Indianapolis and finally Canada. Being the outer space travellers that they are, a trip to Europe from their US homes would have felt like a quick one. They missed the birth of Moo Deng, the baby pygmy hippo — an endangered species — whose blubbery adorableness made her a viral sensation far beyond her zoo in Thailand. Maybe they caught a glimpse of her on an electronic device. (They have Wi-Fi.) But did they also catch the equally sensational pygmy hippo Haggis, born in late October at the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland?

They weren’t around to see President Joe Biden withdrawing from the presidential race in July and his vice president, Kamala Harris, stepping up to run, making her the first woman of colour from a major party to be nominated for president. But they were spared the endless analysis and political ads on TV. Not that they missed the actual election — they still got to vote from space! Texas allows NASA astronauts to do that. (Both live in Texas.) They didn’t participate in the summer of“Brat” that singer Charli XCX created, declaring that Harris was “brat” — part cool girl, part tough girl. But if Williams and Wilmore couldn’t figure it out from outer space, they shouldn’t feel bad. Most earthbound adults, even with unfettered access to every trending phenomenon, never quite figured out exactly what “brat” meant.

They missed the Summer Olympics in Paris with its cinematic opening played out across the city, gorgeous even as it rained. They missed the Dodgers winning the World Series with phenom Shohei Ohtani. They didn’t have a chance to see “Wicked” open in a movie theatre and sing along with fans.

Just recently, while they were still in space, they missed Jimmy Carter turning 100 in October and dying last month, making him the longest-lived US president and one of the most admired for his work after he left office.

He was a negotiator, human rights advocate and creator of affordable housing — his own version of an Eras tour, which spanned decades.

Some events they missed were more personal. Williams turned 59 in space, so if her husband and friends planned a party, she didn’t make it. Wilmore has not been on Earth for the first half of his daughters’ school year— one a senior in high school, the other a college sophomore.

Of course they also missed a lot of heartache and gloom on Earth. And no doubt even if you’ve been there for months, space still awes (when you’re not trying to fix the toilet on the space station). But our New Year’s wish for Williams and Wilmore is that they get home this spring in time to see the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C., the jacarandas in L.A. or whatever harbinger of the next season inspires them.