That’s the word from astronaut Scott Kelly, NASA’s space-endurance champ who returned to bitterly cold Kazakhstan on Wednesday, along with his roommate for the past year, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko.
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During their 340 days in space, Kelly and Kornienko were the subjects of dozens of medical experiments and studies to see how human bodies cope with the long-term effects of weightlessness and exposure to the high-radiation environment of outer space. Both will split later Wednesday as Kelly heads to Houston to reunite with his family.
“Needed a little humour to lighten up a year in space”, he wrote on Twitter on February 23, when he posted the video.
Kelly also promised to keep a personal journal of his experience on the space station and said that he might share it with us.
A short time ago, they landed in Kazakhstan, but their work isn’t over yet, as NASA public affairs officer Rob Navias explains.
After almost a year orbiting the Earth, US astronaut Scott Kelly was on the cusp of coming home on Tuesday after spending more time in space than any other American.
Kelly’s body will help researchers understand the effects of space, especially since it can now compare his systems to that of his Earth-bound twin brother, Mark.
Scientists hope to learn much from Kelly’s mission to pave the way to Mars in two decades.
During the year in space, Kelly and Kornienko participated in a number of studies to advance NASA’s Mars mission.
Kornienko and Kelly spent a whopping 340 days on the space station during their yearlong flight.
The International Space Station, a joint project of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada, followed Mir and has been permanently staffed by rotating crews since 2000. The three are preparing for launch to the International Space Station (ISS) in the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 28, 2015. While Kelly travelled outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, his identical twin brother, Mark, remained on ground in NASA to serve as the “genetic control”, according to Discovery. Those missions would be years long round trip.
Also leaving the station Tuesday were Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov.
“I’m involved in something that’s bigger than what I do in life – bigger than my science”, he said. Adding, “Scott has become the first American astronaut to spend a year in space, and in so doing, helped us take one giant leap toward putting boots on Mars”.
The space station is NASA’s springboard toward the stages in space exploration, including “future missions to an asteroid and Mars”.
Kelly was lifted from the capsule and placed in a seat to allow his body to readjust to the earth’s gravity.
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As he relinquished command of the space station Monday, Kelly noted that he and Kornienko “have been up here for a really, really long time” and have been jokingly telling one another, “We did it!” and “We made it!”
