Shuttle astronaut collapses at welcome-home event

[stu]

Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper collapsed twice during a welcome-home ceremony on Friday, a day after returning to Earth from a 12-day mission on space shuttle Atlantis.

 

Stefanyshyn-Piper, who was on her first spaceflight and made two long spacewalks to perform work on the International Space Station, had "a couple of small dizzy spells" while speaking during the ceremony at Ellington Field in Houston, said NASA spokeswoman Lynnette Madison.

 

A flight surgeon examined Stefanyshyn-Piper, 43, and said she was fine, but still making the readjustment to Earth's gravity from the weightlessness of space, Madison said.

 

She was not placed in a hospital and "is doing great now," Madison said.

 

Such spells are not uncommon for returning astronauts.

 

"It's just one of those things that sometimes you come back from zero-gravity and it can make you a little dizzy," Madison said.

 

Returning shuttle astronauts fly back into Ellington, which is near NASA's Johnson Space Center, and traditionally speak at a ceremony there.

 

Stefanyshyn-Piper and her five crewmates restarted construction of the space station, which was put on hold after the 2003 Columbia disaster, by delivering and installing a 17.5 tonne solar power unit and truss structure on the space outpost.