After spending seven months aboard the International Space Station, the last four as commander of Expedition 43, Columbia native Terry Virts returned to earth on June 11.
Like a long-planned fabulous vacation, does it all now seem like a dream?
"I can't process it yet," he said from his home in Houston. "It's been surprisingly easy to get back to earth."
It wasn't his first space flight. Virts, an Air Force colonel who is a 1985 graduate of Oakland Mills High, piloted space shuttle Endeavor to the ISS in 2009, spending only 12 days on the station but helping to install the cupola that provides a 360-degree view and is, understandably, most crew members' favorite spot.
Now with the football field-size (in length and width) ISS assembly virtually complete, astronauts wear many hats these days, and a commander can be "a cable guy," as Virts puts it, spacewalking to install wiring for new spacecraft docking areas, lubricate the robotic arm and other tasks.
Most time aboard the ISS is filled with renovation and reconfiguration, routine maintenance and running hundreds of science experiments, from biology to technology.
For instance, astronauts produced the first 3-D printed tool in space, a ratchet wrench; studied the bone and vision changes many astronauts experience; used rodents to study immunology; and examined human airways with implications for asthmatics, work applicable both in space and on earth. Even the station's espresso machine played a part, helping the understanding of fluid movement in space.
There's also regular tweeting duties and posting photos to Instagram; Virts' shots of earthly wonders and spectacular sky are seen by 200,000 online followers.
"It's an amazing way to share a small part of what I'm doing not only with Americans but with those all around the world," he said.
The failure of a Russian cargo launch extended the flight an extra month. During the extra flight time, Virts was involved in station renovation and reconfiguration, moving the module that had temporarily blocked part of the cupola's view, and seeing what he wanted to all along: the beautiful Southern Auroras.
As if walking and working in space weren't challenges enough, Virts had to deal with a space suit whose failed pump needed replacement and a helmet that collected water; because snorkels are now added to astronauts' gear, "I was never in any danger," Virts said.
Nor was there any political acrimony with Russian cosmonauts, whose nation's Soyuz capsules transport American astronauts to the ISS since the retirement of the space shuttle.
"We never heed those issues; political tensions did not spill over," said Virts. "The space program is an example of how cooperative we should be. I'm proud to be part of it. And one of my favorite parts is getting to spend time with them."
The adventure has been a long time coming. In a 2009 interview, his mother, Evelyn Coulson, said Virts was a mere 2 years old when he saw video of men on the moon and announced, "I gonna do that."
He never swerved from that purpose, planning the steps to take and contacts to make to bring it about; Coulson still keeps Virts' Post-it, notes-to-self as proof at her current home on the Eastern shore.
Virts earned a bachelor's degree in math from the Air Force Academy, a master's in aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and completed Harvard's general management program, between service as both fighter and test pilot, ultimately accumulating 4,300 flight hours in more than 40 different air crafts. Selected as an astronaut, he became one of the capsule communicator voices at Mission Control in Houston and trained for years on simulators preparing for his own turn in space.
Virts maintains that what he really wants to do is to get to the moon.
"If we are going to actually live off the planet and colonize Mars eventually and even beyond that, the space station is a steppingstone," says Virts.
As for the immediate future, he's hoping it includes attending an Orioles game and eating crabs.