“I will never be done with space, I will always be involved”, Kelly said.
Advertisement
And while Kelly did say he grew an inch and a half in space, (possibly giving him a height advantage over his twin Mark for the first time in his life) he knows that benefit will disappear quickly.
“Welcome back to Earth”, U.S. President Barack Obama wrote to Kelly on Twitter. He’s flown multiple missions for the space agency – and it’s time to give other, talented astronauts a chance, he said. He felt better just after landing than he did after his six-month stint on the space station in 2010 to 2011, but the triumph was momentary.
(Kelly) “Also have an issue with my skin, because it hadn’t touched anything for so long, like any significant contact, it’s very, very sensitive, nearly like a burning feeling whenever I sit or lay or walk”. “I hadn’t had running water in 340 days and it’s something you really miss”, he said.
“I feel more like an environmentalist since I’ve been up here”. “From having so little on the space station and so few choices about what you’re going to do every day, what’s available to you, to basically having just about anything”, he told reporters.
Kelly answered questions in the news conference about the first food he ate upon return-a banana-and the one place in the world he wants to visit now that he’s seen it from a new perspective-a remote collection of lakes north of the Himalayas.
As for differences between the brothers – genetic doubles who took part in medical studies throughout the flight – Mark has a better tan, according to Scott.
NASA’s chief space station scientist, Julie Robinson, said she’d ideally like 10 or 12 astronauts to spend extra-long periods in space to know what all the risks might be.
If Kelly is any indication, Mars crews will need to get plenty of Earth news.
Kelly’s companion for the entire space journey, cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, 55, is back home in Star City, Russia, dealing with his own adjustments to gravity. NASA must wait until its commercial shipper SpaceX is delivering back and forth again – following a launch accident last summer – to get the scientific treasure trove, hopefully in May. His longtime girlfriend and NASA public affairs officer Amiko Kauderer worked on them as a project with him.
Kelly holds the USA record for total days in space – 520 days over four missions. “I doubt that I would fly again with NASA, having the most time in space”, he explained.
Advertisement
“I’m used to going 17,500 miles per hour, but this airplane doesn’t quite do that”, Kelly quipped after a belated 2:30 a.m. ET touchdown on Thursday at Ellington Field near the Johnson Space Center. “I will always be involved”.
