Last year astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams blasted off to the International Space Station for a mission that was supposed to last a mere week but wound up lasting nine months due to a series of mishaps and equipment failures. Fortunately things worked out and they returned to Earth today. It has occurred to me that this is a golden opportunity for NASA doctors and scientists. There are long term space missions on the drawing boards at NASA and this is a great opportunity to give these astronauts a thorough check up to see what adverse changes their prolonged trip into space has made to their bodies (I'm thinking loss of muscle and bone density due to there being no gravity on the station) so they can figure out what to do to prevent such things from happening in the future.