Last month NASA astronaut Bill McArthur said goodbye to his post as commander of the International Space Station (ISS). Like most earth-bound people who love their jobs, but leaving the orbital laboratory behind last month was an emotional moment. “We did see the space station recede in our view with a very strong sense of sadness because it was home for us,” McArthur said. 

McArthur spent six months in command of the ISS with Russian cosmonaut and flight engineer Valery Tokarev, guest Marcos Pontes (Brazil’s first astronaut) during the Expedition 12 mission. The Expedition 12 crew arrived at the ISS in October 2005 with another space tourist american Gregory Olsen.

During their 109 days in orbit McArthur and Tokarev performed two spacewalks and a number of experiments and maintenance tasks. The crew also launched an unmanned spacesuit from the station into orbit and recorded a rare orbital view of a solar eclipse’s shadow on the Earth.

Of all his spaceflights, McArthur said Expedition 12 is the most memorable not because it was his last journey into space but because of the length of his stay. "We lived in space for six months and it was a thrill,” he said.  Before his ISS assignment
“I’d always hoped... we would stay in orbit just a little longer. I kind of liken it to the difference between taking a vacation to an interesting place and living in that place."

Now that his back on terra firma, he say's he is ready to sit on the sidelines as other astronauts get their shot at space.  "Hopefully one of them will go to Mars,” he added. Of course, what he really means is that he wished he could join them on the Red Planet.