Welcome home Peggy Whitson! Thank you for your service and accomplishments as first female commander of the International Space Station and, after serving 192 days in space on your recent stay, new American record holder for accumulated space time. (At 377 days over 48 years your space-life ratio represents 2.2%.) Under your oversight ISS grew faster than toddler-slapped blocks on a toy castle. Your five spacewalks establish you sixteenth among spacewalkers and overall women's champion. Outstanding! Now two of my heroes are from Iowa and work in outer space.

After sharing hugs and hot sauce with successors Expedition 17 you bade farewell to your erstwhile home, undocking the trusty Soyuz spacecraft for deorbit early Saturday. That's when things broke loose with voice contact lost and the craft tracklessly off course. White knuckled terrestrial observers (alongside sleepless orbiting ones!) breathlessly awaited your fearless transit Earthward on a stunning 8.2G spinning ballistic path hundreds of klicks short from the expected destination. Quite understandably you said: "Gravity's not really my friend right now and 8 G's was especially not my friend."

(After this becoming-more-usual and ambiguously dangerous landing, co-Expeditioner Yuri Malenchenko stated clearly, "The crew took no action that could have led to it." This after he climbed out of the capsule under his own power after six months in weightlessness to satellite phone the recovery crews. He probably then went on to help the locals put out the grass fires incident with the arrival.)

When asked about more pleasant opportunities than gravity coping you said, "I'm excited about having a little bit more selection in food and being able to actually cook something instead of eating something out of a bag. And I'm also looking forward, I really like working in my garden and planting flowers. It's the right time of year in Houston to be doing that, so I'm looking forward to doing that, get a little extra rehab in that way."

ATV. Kibo. Dextre. Columbus. Two Progress resupply ships and three shuttles, one even arriving to celebrate your birthday! This "Mother of all Expeditions" was lucky to have you at the helm. Sorry about the rough ride home, but all's well that ends well and we have three healthy astronauts on the ground. From pointed ears with Expedition 5 to commanding extraterrestrial home wiring repairs, you inspire us all to do something more than we thought we could. As you tend your garden, note the plants themselves reach from Earth towards heaven's light above. Teach 'em a thing or two.


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