Shocking impact of 220 days in space as NASA's oldest astronaut returns to Earth on 70th birthday
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Bill Ingalls/NASA
A NASA astronaut spent part of his 70th birthday hurtling towards Earth, before undergoing a series of tests on his health upon touchdown.
After spending a total of 220 days in space, a frail-looking Don Pettit - who is NASA's oldest serving astronaut - appeared from the shuttle alongside two Russian cosmonauts at the crash site in Kazakhstan, yesterday (April 20).
Taking to Twitter to confirm the 70-year-old's safe return to Earth, NASA wrote: "Home sweet Houston. @NASA_Astronauts Don Pettit has officially returned home from the @Space_Station after completing his fourth spaceflight, totaling 590 days in space. A picture perfect mission."
Yes, it wasn't his first stint in space having served on several missions in his 29-year space career, with 370 days in total orbiting Earth prior to the 220 he has just achieved.
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But covering more than 93 million miles while orbiting our planet 3,520 times, it's got to take a toll on your body - especially the way in which their spacecraft collided with the steppes of Kazakhstan.
Responding to how pale Pettit looked, one person tweeted: "I hope Don Pettit is OK. Soyuz landings can be rough (as seen here). I wonder if he hit his head on something."
"He looked out of it," added another.
A third typed: "The commentary indicates that Pettit was in a bad shape after extraction from the capsule."
While a fourth wrote in part: "No images of @astro_Pettit since he was pulled from the Soyuz in a fragile state."
However, NASA tweeted shortly after to confirm that the veteran is 'doing well'.
"According to NASA officials at the landing site, @Astro_Pettit is doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth.
"What's expected for him? In his own words during an April 16 pre-departure interview, 'This is a physiological thing. It affects different people different ways. Some people can go out and eat pizza and dance. When I land, it takes me about 24 hours to feel like I'm a human being again.'"
Despite his age, Pettit is not the oldest person to have ever orbited Earth - with that title going to the late NASA astronaut John Glenn, who was 77 at the time of his 1998 mission.
Glenn sadly passed away at the age of 95 in 2016.
On Friday, Pettit posted: "The feeling of being home is directly proportional to how far you have traveled.
"When going out to dinner, you feel home when pulling into the driveway. When touring about for a Sunday drive, you feel home when entering the outskirts of your town. When driving across the United States, perhaps on one of those memorable family vacations, you get a feeling of being home when you cross your state line (be sure to stop and take a family photo).
"When flying international, you feel home the first place your airplane returns to US soil. You may be 2000 miles from home, but you say to yourself, I am home. After having been on Space Station for seven months, we will be returning on our Soyuz spacecraft landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
"When our capsule goes thump on those desert flats, I will be literally on the opposite side of Earth, nearly 12,000 miles from home. Yet I will be home.
"I can picture sometime in the future, a crew returning from Mars and after inserting themselves into low Earth orbit, they will look down at this blue jewel circling below and say, 'I am Home'."