NASA Astronaut Suni Williams Shouldn’t Have to Discuss Her Weight to Dismiss Tabloid Rumors

Floating successful a microgravity situation that’s 250 miles supra Earth’s aboveground hasn’t spared Suni Williams from inappropriate comments astir her body, forcing the NASA astronaut to contented a nationalist connection connected her weight.

In effect to tabloid reports that raised interest implicit the astronaut’s appearance, Williams reiterated that she is successful bully wellness and has maintained the aforesaid value since boarding the International Space Station (ISS) successful June. Although the rumors surrounding Williams stemmed from her extended enactment connected the abstraction station, the enactment of questioning reiterated the media’s absorption connected the quality of women astronauts and the presumption that women person a harder clip successful space.

This morning, @Astro_Suni spoke with @NESN astir her enactment aboard the @Space_Station, her emotion of Boston sports, and staying acceptable and active. She besides addressed rumors astir her wellness during her mission. https://t.co/E4TLpLjpPD

— NASA Astronauts (@NASA_Astronauts) November 12, 2024

Williams, on with NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, launched to the ISS connected June 5, riding connected committee Boeing’s Starliner for the archetypal crewed trial formation of the spacecraft. The spacecraft remained docked to the abstraction presumption for 3 months arsenic teams connected the crushed debated whether oregon not it was harmless to instrumentality the unit connected committee Starliner. During its travel to the ISS, five of the spacecraft’s thrusters failed and the spacecraft developed five helium leaks, 1 of which was identified anterior to liftoff, forcing NASA to yet determine to instrumentality an uncrewed Starliner and bring backmost its unit connected committee SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.

That, however, meant that Williams and Wilmore, who had primitively planned connected staying connected committee the ISS for astir 8 days, would extremity up spending 8 months successful space. Naturally, the communicative of the stranded astronauts drew the attraction of the media.

A caller photograph of Williams sparked headlines successful The New York Post and The Daily Mail that speculated implicit the astronaut’s health, suggesting that she had mislaid value and describing her quality arsenic “gaunt.”

“I’m the aforesaid value that I was erstwhile I got up here,” Williams said during a caller interview with the New England Sports Network. The astronaut added that she had been moving retired connected committee the ISS, riding an workout motorcycle and lifting weights, which whitethorn person somewhat changed her body.

NASA insisted stranded astronaut Sunita Williams is harmless & steadfast amid growing nationalist interest for her health

The photograph showed her looking 'gaunt', suggesting she had mislaid a important magnitude of value aft spending much than 150 days stuck on the International Space Station. pic.twitter.com/vFEEkfVgDK

— AstroNana (@ImAstroNana) November 9, 2024

“I could decidedly archer that weightlifting, which is not thing that I bash each the time, has decidedly changed me,” Williams said during the unrecorded provender from the ISS. “My thighs are a small spot bigger, my butt is simply a small spot bigger.”

Williams besides described a phenomena known arsenic fluid shift, which whitethorn origin astronauts to look arsenic though they person a somewhat larger caput arsenic their bodily fluids are distributed much evenly successful the microgravity environment.

The astronaut gave a just explanation, but her being forced to code these issues highlights the media’s bias against women astronauts. As the archetypal American pistillate to spell to space, Sally Ride had to woody with a slew of sexist questions from reporters who were funny to cognize whether she had packed constitution for her ngo and if she wept during her training. NASA’s archetypal pistillate astronauts were besides taxable to akin sexist remarks by the media, which often included their marital status, height, and value erstwhile referring to them successful quality articles.

Williams arrived to abstraction with different astronaut, and yet his wellness isn’t being questioned nor are his photos being examined for clues astir however overmuch helium weighs. The Starliner unit includes a brace of highly trained, experienced astronauts who person spent agelong durations successful space, truthful portion their extended enactment connected committee the ISS whitethorn not beryllium ideal, it’s thing they some can’t handle.