After spending more than a year in space, Frank Rubio now has to get used to that pesky thing Earthlings call gravity.
“Walking hurts a little bit the first few days, the soles of your feet and lower back,” he said at a news conference at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
“I think there is a certain level of pain that comes with the fact that your lower back now supports half your weight.”
Rubio returned to Earth two weeks ago after spending 371 days in space, having taken off in September of last year aboard a Russian rocket for what was supposed to be a routine, six-month mission.
The Soyuz spacecraft that was supposed to bring them back was docked at the International Space Station to be used as an emergency backup vehicle. But then it sprung a coolant leak in December, probably due to a micrometeoroid.
