Sunita Williams' return: Is space travel so tricky?

In one of the most politicized and closely-followed space missions, Sunita Williams, an astronaut of Indian descent, spent 286 days in space, rather than the planned eight. Weren't space missions meant to get easier with time? The answer's more nuanced than is apparent.

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1. Why did Williams spend such a long time in space?

Williams' and fellow Nasa astronaut Butch Wilmore's mission aboard a Boeing spacecraft has finally ended and they are safely back on Earth. A leaking propulsion tank and faulty thrusters in the Boeing Starliner threw return plans off schedule. A subsequent human spaceflight had to be dedicatedly planned for the stranded astronauts, which took time due to natural scheduling challenges. Elon Musk, who runs SpaceX, claimed that he had "offered to bring Williams back" more than six months ago, but Nasa administrator Bill Nelson has denied this. Amid this political slugfest and engineering failure, Williams and Wilmore ended up spending over nine months in space. Eventually, SpaceX's Crew Dragon flew Williams and Wilmore back to earth safely-a feat that underlined how far the safety of space missions has evolved in the past two decades.

2. Has Williams broken the record for a human in space?