After three previous shorter missions into space, recently returned NASA astronaut Scott Kelly says only one thing caught him off guard about his recent trip that lasted almost a year.
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Mark Kelly, Scott’s identical twin brother, was a key participant to the mission despite never leaving Earth.
If NASA had allowed it, astronaut Scott Kelly would have loved to climb out of the Soyuz capsule after landing on Tuesday and walked on his own, Kelly’s brother, Mark, said during a news conference on Friday.
The 52-year-old arrived back in the United States on Thursday after spending nearly a year in space.
Alanah Pearce is IGN’s Toys & Culture Editor, but she sometimes wishes she was an astronaut instead.
And as Kelly has said, the 1.5 inches he gained in height in zero gravity have already disappeared.
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. Now scientists can take all of that data and make something of it for the mars mission.
The specifics are important because a team of doctors is carefully researching the genetic, physical and psychological differences between Kelly and his twin, who is also an astronaut but who stayed on Earth to take part in the study.
Hopefully the other firsts back on Earth are a bit more satisfying.
The two astronauts have described their return to Earth as bittersweet, though Kelly said that the isolation could be challenging.
“I am confident in saying that it will influence how we understand cancer”, he said. Barack Obama shows Kelly a lot of support and thanks and even said “Hope gravity isn’t a drag!” as well as called him over the phone while he was still in space. Some of those samples are still at the International Space Station, he said, and will return to Earth in the coming months on board the SpaceX Dragon. His muscles and joints ache much more this time around, he said, and there is a “burning sensation” in his skin from having close contact once again with surfaces and materials. Kelly believes it is due to the fact that his skin hasn’t touched anything for such a long time. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article. But perhaps in the next 20 years, “you’ll be able to just buy a cheap ticket, go for a little visit”.
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“When you go up in space there’s no gravity, so all this fluid shifts upward towards the head and it causes a number of issues for astronauts”, said Brinda Rana, a molecular geneticist at UC San Diego who is involved in two of the 10 research projects, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times.
