Astronaut and New Jersey native Scott Kelly will retire from NASA April 1.
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Kelly flew in space four times beginning with a mission to the Hubble Space Telescope aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1999. He completed a 340-day mission aboard the International Space Station earlier this month, the longest continuous stay in space for an American astronaut. My departure from NASA is my next step on that journey. He’ll continue to participate in ongoing research related to the one-year mission in space from which he just returned. “I will always be involved”. Record-breaking NASA astronaut Scott Kelly talks here about why he’s retiring.
“In a report published by the USAToday, ” My career with the Navy and NASA gave me an incredible chance to showcase public service to which I am dedicated, and what we can accomplish on the big challenges of our day”, Kelly said in a statement.
Kelly experienced many changes during his year in space, including growing two inches taller.
In a blog post Friday, Kelly said he looks forward to supporting NASA’s work as it travels farther into space.
NASA said the unprecedented yearlong space station mission “aimed to expand the boundaries of space exploration beyond low-Earth orbit through the collection of critical data on how the human body responds to extended space missions”. The mission provided NASA scientists with invaluable information on how the human body adapts during long-term space flight.
“Adjusting in space is easier than adjusting to Earth for me”, Kelly said in his first postflight news conference a week ago. He served as commander of the space station’s Expedition 26 from October 2010 to March 2011.
(AP Photo/NASA TV). FILE – In this Friday, Aug. 10, 2007 image made from video provided by NASA, commander Scott Kelly sits in the flight deck of shuttle Endeavour as he prepares to dock with the International Space Station.
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“All of us in the NASA family – and indeed in the broader scientific community – are grateful that he was willing to sacrifice time with his loved ones, meals that don’t come in a bag, a cold beer, hot showers, cool autumn breezes, the sounds of birds chirping, the ability to lay his head on an actual pillow and so much more of the pleasures of life during his year of research and experimentation the International Space Station”.
