Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams returned to earth after a record 195-day stay in space as space shuttle Atlantis touched down at the Edwards Air Force Base in California today.
The spacecraft landed at 0119 IST at Edwards in the Mojave Desert where it was diverted after poor weather at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral forced mission managers to skip three landing attempts there over the last 24 hours.
"Welcome back and congratulations on a great mission," NASA mission control said to the seven-member crew soon after the shuttle landed.
Soon after the touchdown, a Crew Transport Vehicle pulled up to the orbiter. It has beds and comfortable seats for the astronauts to receive medical checks immediately after returning to Earth.
"I will not call her Miss Universe. I will call her India's daughter," a beaming Deepak Pandya, father of Williams, said in Houston soon after her return to earth.
He said the entire family would be visiting India as soon as possible after NASA permits to travel.
Williams crossed the milestone for longest uninterrupted stay by a woman in space on Saturday last surpassing the 188-day, four-hour mark set by US astronaut Shannon Lucid in 1996 on a mission to the Russian Mir space station.
She had set off from Cape Canaveral in December nine last year on space shuttle Discovery for what was to become the longest space journey by a woman.
Although it is only her first space flight, Williams became the world's most experienced woman walker in space on February four with four excursions clocking over 29 hours and 17 minutes to top Kathy Thornton's 21-hour space walking record.
During her stay at the space station, Williams has worked with experiments across a wide variety of fields, including human life sciences, physical sciences and Earth observation as well as education and technology demonstrations.
Some of these experiments give scientists critical insight into the effects of weightlessness on human bodies while others show ways to prevent effects already known about like muscle and bone loss.
In addition to rigorous exercise, Williams also collected and stored her blood while in space to add to an ongoing study on nutrition, another key element of living in space for long stretches of time.
The results of this study may impact nutritional requirements and food systems developed for future ventures in space. 
Congratulation and salute from Ahmedabad,
A chat with Dr.Devi Shetty , Narayana Hrudayalaya ( Heart Specialist) Bangalore, India was arranged by WIPRO for its employees .The transcript of the chat is given below. Useful for everyone.
Qn: What are the thumb rules for a layman to take care of his heart?
Ans: 1. Diet - Less of carbohydrate, more of protein, less oil
2. Exercise - Half an hour's walk, at least five days a week; avoid lifts and avoid sitting for a longtime
3. Quit smoking
4. Control weight
5. Control blood pressure and sugar
Qn: Is eating non-veg food (fish) good for the heart?
Ans: No
Qn: It's still a grave shock to hear that some apparently healthy person gets a cardiac arrest. How do we understand it in perspective?
Ans: This is called silent attack; that is why we recommend everyone past the age of 30 to undergo routine health checkups.
Qn: Are heart diseases hereditary?
Ans: Yes
Qn: What are the ways in which the heart is stressed? What practices do you suggest to de-stress?
Ans: Change your attitude towards life. Do not look for perfection in everything in life.
Qn: Is walking better than jogging or is more intensive exercise required to keep a healthy heart?
Ans: Walking is better than jogging since jogging leads to early fatigue and injury to joints .
Qn: You have done so much for the poor and needy. What has inspired you to do so?
Ans: Mother Theresa , who was my patient.
Qn: Can people with low blood pressure suffer heart diseases?
Ans: Extremely rare
Qn: Does cholesterol accumulates right from an early age(I'm currently only 22) or do you have to worry about it only after you are above 30 years of age?
Ans: Cholesterol accumulates from childhood.
Qn: How do irregular eating habits affect the heart ?
Ans: You tend to eat junk food when the habits are irregular and your body's enzyme release for digestion gets confused.
Qn: How can I control cholesterol content without using medicines?
Ans: Control diet, walk and eat walnut.
Qn: Can yoga prevent heart ailments?
Ans: Yoga helps.
Qn: Which is the best and worst food for the heart?
Ans: Fruits and vegetables are the best and the worst is oil.
Qn: Which oil is better - groundnut, sunflower, olive?
Ans: All oils are bad .
Qn: What is the routine checkup one should go through? Is there any specific test?
Ans: Routine blood test to ensure sugar, cholesterol is ok. Check BP, Treadmill test after an echo.
Qn: What are the first aid steps to be taken on a heart attack?
Ans: Help the person into a sleeping position , place an aspirin tablet under the tongue with a sorbitrate tablet if available, and rush him to a coronary care unit since the maximum casualty takes place within the first hour.
Qn: How do you differentiate between pain caused by a heart attack and that caused due to gastric trouble?
Ans: Extremely difficult without ECG.
Qn: What is the main cause of a steep increase in heart problems amongst youngsters? I see people of about 30-40 yrs of age having heart attacks and serious heart problems.
Ans: Increased awareness has increased incidents. Also, edentary lifestyles, smoking, junk food, lack of exercise in a country where people are genetically three times more vulnerable for heart attacks than Europeans and Americans.
Qn: Is it possible for a person to have BP outside the normal range of 120/80 and yet be perfectly healthy?
Ans: Yes.
Qn: Marriages within close relatives can lead to heart problems for the child. Is it true?
Ans : Yes, co-sanguinity leads to congenital abnormalities and you may not have a software engineer as a child
Qn: Many of us have an irregular daily routine and many a times we have to stay late nights in office. Does this affect our heart ? What precautions would you recommend?
Ans : When you are young, nature protects you against all these irregularities. However, as you grow older, respect the biological clock.
Qn: Will taking anti-hypertensive drugs cause some other complications (short / long term)?
Ans : Yes, most drugs have some side effects. However, modern anti-hypertensive drugs are extremely safe.
Qn: Will consuming more coffee/tea lead to heart attacks?
Ans : No.
Qn: Are asthma patients more prone to heart disease?
Ans : No.
Qn: How would you define junk food?
Ans : Fried food like Kentucky , McDonalds , samosas, and even masala dosas.
Qn: You mentioned that Indians are three times more vulnerable. What is the reason for this, as Europeans and Americans also eat a lot of junk food?
Ans: Every race is vulnerable to some disease and unfortunately, Indians are vulnerable for the most expensive disease.
Qn: Does consuming bananas help reduce hypertension?
Ans : No.
Qn: Can a person help himself during a heart attack (Because we see a lot of forwarded emails on this)?
Ans : Yes. Lie down comfortably and put an aspirin tablet of any description under the tongue and ask someone to take you to the nearest coronary care unit without any delay and do not wait for the ambulance since most of the time, the ambulance does not turn up.
Qn: Do, in any way, low white blood cells and low hemoglobin count lead to heart problems?
Ans : No. But it is ideal to have normal hemoglobin level to increase your exercise capacity.
Qn: Sometimes, due to the hectic schedule we are not able to exercise. So, does walking while doing daily chores at home or climbing the stairs in the house, work as a substitute for exercise?
Ans : Certainly. Avoid sitting continuously for more than half an hour and even the act of getting out of the chair and going to another chair and sitting helps a lot.
Qn: Is there a relation between heart problems and blood sugar?
Ans: Yes. A strong relationship since diabetics are more vulnerable to heart attacks than non-diabetics.
Qn: What are the things one needs to take care of after a heart operation?
Ans : Diet, exercise, drugs on time , Control cholesterol, BP, weight.
Qn: Are people working on night shifts more vulnerable to heart disease when compared to day shift workers?
Ans : No.
Qn: What are the modern anti-hypertensive drugs?
Ans : There are hundreds of drugs and your doctor will chose the right combination for your problem, but my suggestion is to avoid the drugs and go for natural ways of controlling blood pressure by walk, diet toreduce weight and changing attitudes towards lifestyles.
Qn: Does dispirin or similar headache pills increase the risk of heart attacks?
Ans : No.
Qn: Why is the rate of heart attacks more in men than in women?
Ans : Nature protects women till the age of 45.
Qn: How can one keep the heart in a good condition?
Ans : Eat a healthy diet, avoid junk food, exercise everyday, do not smoke and, go for health checkup s if you are past the age of 30 ( once in six months recommended)...
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Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams today made history, by setting a new record for the longest uninterrupted space flight undertaken by a woman. International Space Station, ISS engineer Williams, whose father hails from Gujarat, surpassed the 188-day, four-hour mark set by her compatriot Shannon Lucid in 1996. This is not for the first time that the lady has set a record.
US-born Sunita Williams, along with astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria and Mikhail Tyurin, have been selected as part of the 14th crew for the six-month long International Space Station Expedition. The expedition will be carried out in September this year.
37-year-old Sunita who will be flight engineer will join Expedition 14 after traveling to the station on space shuttle mission STS-116, NASA announced. This will be Sunita's first space flight. Michael Lopez-Alegria will be the commander and the station science officer and Mikhail Tyurin will be the flight engineer and Soyuz commander.
Born on September 19, 1965 in Euclid, Ohio, to Deepak and Bonnie Pandya, who reside in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Sunita is married to US-based Michael Williams. She has no children.
Sunita is a graduate of the Naval Academy. She graduated from Florida Institute of Technology and, in May 1987, received her commission as an Ensign in the US Navy from the US Naval Academy. In 1989, she was designated a Naval Aviator and in 1993, she graduated from the Naval Test Pilot School in 1993.
She was later assigned to Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 8 in Norfolk, Virginia. She made overseas deployments to the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf supporting Operation Desert Shield.
Largely because she has logged 2,770 flight hours on 30 different aircraft, she was selected as an astronaut in 1998. She has since then been under training and waiting for a space flight assignment.In 2003, Sunita was appointed by NASA as a backup crew member for a space mission to the space station orbiting 240 miles above Earth.
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