Opinion: Think you’ve got a rough travel story? Try being stuck in space for 52 days

Think you have a bad travel story? Millions of Americans do this summer. But it’s hard to top, and I mean that word in every sense, the plight of Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams.

They are the astronauts who went into space on June 5 aboard the Boeing Starliner capsule for what is supposed to be about a week in orbit on the International Space Station. They have now been orbiting the Earth for 52 days.

Just before launch, NASA unloaded luggage containing personal items, like a change of clothes, because the space agency needed room for a new pump to recycle liquid waste into potable water. Think about that over your morning coffee.

Sure, your spacesuit might look a little wrinkled in a week. But who’s going to see you — ET? Plus, you’ll be home soon. Oh, wait…

Boeing’s Starliner suffered from helium leaks and thruster failures on its maiden voyage to the ISS. The craft’s battery was supposed to last 90 days. Time is running out for engineers to diagnose the problem and repair the Starliner if astronauts are to fly it home.

To be clear, astronauts Williams and Wilmore are not stranded. They are staying aboard the ISS, with other astronauts and cosmonauts. If the Starliner can’t return to Earth, the astronauts may have to return in a SpaceX Dragon capsule… another shame for Boeing.

Williams and Wilmore can handle the changes in the plan. Both are military and space veterans. Williams has done seven spacewalks.

But it’s tempting to imagine a space sitcom this weekend that studios might be planning right now. Like Nine’s Company: “Two astronauts can’t get home when their spaceship blows a gasket and they’re forced to sleep on the ISS. But wait — who’s got the Hello Kitty toothbrush?”

Or the Netflix romcom Lost and Found in Space. “Two astronauts are trapped together on the ISS. Jordan is neat and methodical, Drew is scatterbrained and impulsive. Jordan listens to Mozart; Drew likes Nicki Minaj. Jordan reads James Joyce and Marcel Proust; Drew watches ramen recipes on TikTok. But as they orbit the Earth 3,000 times, their eyes meet across the module, see each other floating in the starlight. And…”