Cape Canaveral, Fla. — The first commander of the international space station surprised his doctors, his trainer-wife and even himself by walking off space shuttle Discovery on Wednesday and celebrating the end of his 4 1/2 months in orbit with a cheeseburger and a beer.
Many space travelers come back to Earth feeling queasy and too weak to walk because of the punishing effects of gravity after even just a few weeks of weightlessness.
American astronaut Bill Shepherd's only complaints: Everything felt heavy and his balance was a little off.
"I'm glad I didn't make a bet with him because I would have lost big-time," marveled wife Beth, who is also his rehabilitation therapist.
A team of doctors and fire-and-rescue technicians rushed to the space shuttle following its pre-dawn landing to help Shepherd and his Russian crewmates, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. The three men flew back to Earth in reclining seats to ease their re-encounter with gravity.
The doctors expected the three spacemen to be weak, wobbly, nauseated, possibly even powerless to move. But all three declined to be carried out on stretchers and walked away on their own, alongside their four shuttle crewmates.
"Everything is about three times as heavy as I expected," said Shepherd, 51, who lifts weights. "Just putting on these coveralls, I picked up what's got to be a couple ounces of cloth and it felt like five pounds."
Even more amazing than his agility was his appetite. Almost all of the seven Americans who returned from long Mir missions a few years back took it slow and easy. A few could barely stand the smell of food.
Shepherd returned from space station Alpha requesting a Heineken.
"Unfortunately, we didn't have any Heinekens, but he did have a beer," his wife said.
The astronaut savored his first shower and his first night in a bed since October. The couple hope to fly home to Houston and their two Labrador retrievers on Thursday following a round of medical tests that began almost immediately after touchdown.
"Hopefully, the first thing that we'll do is we'll grill a big steak out there by the pool drinking Heineken," his wife said.
Shuttle commander James Wetherbee guided Discovery to a 2:31 a.m. touchdown an hour and a half late because of rain clouds and gusts. The shuttle returned 13 days after it lifted off on a mission to deliver a fresh space station crew and five tons of gear.
Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev circled Earth about 2,200 times during their inaugural, 141-day stay aboard the space station, traveling 58 million miles.
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