(Radio Iowa) – Iowa native astronaut Peggy Whitson says she’s ready for her -next- space mission after returning last week from her record-setting fourth trip to the International Space Station. Whitson, who grew up in Beaconsfield, is the only astronaut who’s gone into orbit on an American space shuttle, a Russian Soyuz, and now a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. She says the G-forces from this latest launch were quite impressive. “It was about four-and-a-half Gs during the second stage, as we were accelerating,” Whitson says. “I always thought it was interesting, when you get to 200 kilometers, and then you change your attitude, and just increase the speed, getting up there really fast — 6,000 meters per second, which just is amazing.”

Six-thousand meters per second is over 13-thousand miles per hour. The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying Whitson and three crewmates splashed down off the Florida coast last week following a ten-day mission. While Whitson has spent well over 600 days aboard the space station, she says new equipment and a large crew made navigating inside the orbiting outpost more of a challenge. “You have to find where all the new cable traps are and everything,” Whitson says. “You have to learn some of those things and with that many people aboard, you couldn’t go as fast. Like, when there was only two or three people aboard, it was pretty easy because you could zip around the corners, there was very few odds that would bang into somebody.”

Peggy Whitson in space suit (Axiom photo)

Eleven astronauts and cosmonauts were aboard the station at one time during this Axiom 2 mission. Whitson, who is now a private astronaut, was asked whether she’s ready for her next launch. “Yep, I’m ready, let’s go!” Whitson says, “especially if I can have a crew that’s great as this one.” Private astronaut John Shoffner and two Saudi Arabian astronauts joined Whitson aboard Axiom 2. They conducted more than 20 experiments in space.

With her fourth mission completed, Whitson’s U.S. space endurance record stands at 675 days.