This image provided by NASA shows astronaut Don Pettit being carried to a medical tent shortly after he, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner landed in their Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Sunday, April 20, 2025. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)
This image provided by NASA shows astronaut Don Pettit boarding a NASA airplane to take him from Karaganda, Kazakhstan to Houston after he, Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner landed in their Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Sunday, April 20, 2025. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
NASA’s oldest astronaut felt the decades melt away in space before returning on his 70th birthday
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) 鈥 Fresh from space, NASA鈥檚 oldest full-time astronaut said Monday that weightlessness made him feel decades younger, with everyday aches and pains vanishing.
This image provided by NASA shows astronaut Don Pettit being carried to a medical tent shortly after he, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner landed in their Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Sunday, April 20, 2025. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) 鈥 Fresh from space, NASA鈥檚 oldest full-time astronaut said Monday that weightlessness made him feel decades younger, with everyday aches and pains vanishing.
Don Pettit marked his 70th birthday on April 20 by in a Russian Soyuz capsule to wrap up a seven-month mission at the .
In his first public remarks since touchdown, Pettit said he threw up all over the Kazak steppes upon touchdown, the result of feeling gravity for the first time in 220 days.
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Returning to Earth has always been 鈥渁 significant challenge鈥 for his body, Pettit said from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
鈥淚 didn’t look too good because I didn’t feel too good,鈥 he said, adding that his body’s normal 鈥渃reaks and groans” returned.
In weightlessness, on the other hand, Pettit felt the decades melt away.
鈥淚t makes me feel like I鈥檓 30 years old again,” said Pettit, an astronaut since 1996 who ventured to space four times. “All that kind of stuff heals up because you鈥檙e sleeping, you’re just floating and your body, all these little aches and pains and everything heal up.”
Mercury astronaut John Glenn was 77 when he returned to orbit on a short shuttle flight in 1998. But he鈥檇 been gone from NASA for decades and was close to wrapping up his Senate career.
Even a pair of 90-year-olds have flown to space, but only on 10-minute up-and-down hops by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket company.
Pettit, an engineer who still feels “like a little kid inside,” focused on his astrophotography while at the space station, capturing auroras, comets and satellites streaking off in the distance.
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He also conducted a slew of physics experiments in his spare time, like blowing and stacking bubbles, and forming a perfect ball of honey on a spoon with peanut butter, in order to share the experience with others.
鈥淚鈥檝e got a few more good years left,” Pettit said. 鈥淚 could see getting another flight or two in before I鈥檓 ready to hang up my rocket nozzles.鈥
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute鈥檚 Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
