'Guess I'll be waiting a minute to surf again': Artemis 2 moon astronaut Christina Koch shares her recovery journey

A week after her historic moon mission ended, NASA astronaut Christina Koch struggled to walk in a straight line during a blindfold test. After posting a video showing her wobbling and nearly tipping over — nearly enough, in fact, that attendants jumped in ready to help — Artemis 2 's Koch joked about her recovery on Instagram : "Guess I'll be waiting a minute to surf again." In microgravity , she added, the brain learns how to ignore signals our body automatically generates when moving around. Astronauts thus face similar issues when returning to Earth as do people with certain medical conditions, including concussions and vertigo, which is where physical therapy — and a bit of humor, as evidenced by Koch's smiles as she wobbled — is helpful. NASA and its international partners have more than 25 years of experience doing long-duration missions on the International Space Station (ISS), while NASA and Russia's Roscosmos (with some other countries) also have different space station experiences dating to the early 1970s. All of this time has accumulated into lived experience that astronauts can share, and which scientists can write about — and have, in thousands of research papers. Microgravity changes are affected somewhat by duration. Koch spent only 10 days in space on Artemis 2, from the April 1 launch to splashdown on April 10 . That's far shy of her near-year on the ISS during her first mission, or the six months a station crew typically spends on board. …