Empathy for Donald Pettit

There was an intriguing outpouring of concern worldwide when Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore returned to Earth after 280-something days in space. People were particularly concerned about Williams’s health and how she was doing, as if Wilmore hadn’t been there with her living through the same mission.

Researchers are still studying the effects of prolonged spaceflight on human bodies and don’t yet have enough data to say with confidence that some effects are more pronounced in women’s bodies. More than a few astronauts have also flown longer missions. NASA also has exercise and medical check-up regimens in place for astronauts to follow during long-duration missions as well as once they return to the ground. Taken together, while the mission profile was unusual, the duo didn’t present NASA with challenges it didn’t already know how to address.

Williams likely received the attention she did because she is more popular and, in some parts of the world, for her Indian ancestry. Other than her being a veteran astronaut, a NASA scientist, and a good ambassador for human spaceflight, I don’t think she’s special in a way that could justify the world’s, including India’s, tunnel vision.

In fact, while there was considerable interest in the astronauts’ well-being onboard the International Space Station (ISS) after their original mission profile had been stretched from eight days to nine months, the world has a much better case study to focus on now — yet few seem bothered.

On April 20 (IST), Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut Donald “Don” Pettit returned from the ISS onboard a Soyuz capsule on its MS-26 mission. Of them, Pettit turned 70 years old on April 20. He is NASA’s oldest active astronaut. His most recent ISS expedition lasted 220 days and so far he has accumulated 590 days in space.

When the Soyuz MS-26 capsule touched down in Kazakhstan, NASA tweeted:

Here’s the April 16 interview, where you can also listen to him talking about what the first thing he’s likely to do once he lands: poop. “It affects different people different ways,” he goes on to say about long space stays. “Some people can land and go out, eat pizza, and dance. When I land, it takes me about 24 hours to feel like I’m a human being again.”

According to Russian journalist (and a good source of spaceflight details coming out of that country) Anatoly Zak, Pettit didn’t look good coming out of the Soyuz capsule.

That cameras at the landing were asked to point away from Pettit because he was in “bad shape” is so wholesome. Jonathan McDowell put it in terms we’d understand:

Right now, Williams, Wilmore, and Pettit will be going through NASA’s physical and mental rehabilitation programme for astronauts wrapping up long-term missions (as defined by NASA’s Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer). It will last for at least 45 days and will be extended if an astronaut needs more help.

Once the rehabilitation is done, it will be good to hear from Williams, Wilmore, and Pettit about their missions. I do hope they will speak up and NASA will allow them to be candid.

A few weeks ago, Ars Technica published an article based on an intimate interview with Barry Wilmore. Both the fact of the article being published and the details that populated it were evidence of good journalism. But I’d rather astronauts who have been on such high-profile missions share all the details they’re allowed to with everyone in a public forum and that their government employers facilitate such interactions. This way what the people find out about doesn’t depend on which questions they already know to ask.

Of course, health possesses a tricky identity in this information landscape. I’m reminded of an article journalist Anoo Bhuyan wrote in 2018, after Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan revealed he had been diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumour. In one evocative passage, Bhuyan laid out the starkly different ways in which Bollywood stars and Indian political leaders addressed public concerns about their medical state.

Bollywood celebrities have no responsibility to be accountable to the public about their health. Yet, they have often been transparent. However, same cannot be said about Indian politicians across parties and across the country. Sonia Gandhi, J. Jayalalithaa, Manohar Parrikar, Sushma Swaraj, Amar Singh and a number of other prominent figures have all been and continue to be tight-lipped about their health. More importantly, they are unaccountable about their inability to perform the jobs for which they were elected.

The empathetic coverage of Pettit as he exited the Soyuz capsule struck an edifying contrast with a lot of media coverage of Sunita Williams that sought details about her health that, should anyone have acquired them, would have constituted a violation of her privacy.

At the same time, human spaceflight is becoming an increasingly prominent preoccupation of many countries. It is both very expensive and, the way it is organised in India (guided as much by political ambitions as by scientific ones and with rarely proactive outreach), is hard to hold accountable.

What astronauts as prominent as Williams, Wilmore, and Pettit say — who are also experienced in ways that few others are — will go a long way towards allowing anyone with an internet connection to participate, learn, and keep up rather than become disengaged and left behind.

Yet the simple fact of an astronaut being a public figure doesn’t mean all their personal details should be availed for public consumption.

Shatrugan Sinha’s advice, as he provided it in Bhuyan’s article, is fitting here: that anyone should be able to share information about their ailments without fear of being removed from their current posts and of being discriminated against for it. The former is currently easier because it is techne — determined by the technical prowess of the times to cure a disease or ‘remove’ a condition’ — while the latter is harder for being episteme, a way of thinking and thus more firmly enmeshed In the mores of the time. Perhaps political leaders are tight-lipped because they know this better than anyone. It is nonetheless unfortunate.

Astronauts are more like film stars here: they owe us no accountability about how they are faring, but if they do elect to share, it can go a long away towards destigmatising the public perception of their work as well as understand what astronauts everywhere, including budding ones at home, are expected to go through.