Scott Kelly Reflects On His Year Off The Planet

While social media users may be derided for oversharing, that's not a problem if you happen to be a NASA astronaut. Scott Kelly has spent over 330 days in space sharing photos of his meals, views of Earth and taking selfies.

Kelly told Air & Space magazine that postmission "you feel bad for a month, and I've never felt completely normal" after his earlier space sojourns. (It will be Tuesday night in the U.S.) The astronaut will ride a Soyuz spacecraft back with two Russians, including Mikhail Kornienko, his roommate for the past year.

In addition to the routine battery of blood tests, physicals and cognitive assessments, there are two broad questions that Kelly's mission is uniquely able to help NASA answer.

Yesterday, Kelly officially handed over the baton of the International Space Station to Tim Kopra, in a traditional Change of Command ceremony.

Despite the length of their flight, Kelly and Kornienko are still some way shy of the record for the longest single spaceflight, which is held by the Russian Valery Polyakov, who spent 437 consecutive days aboard the Mir space station in the mid-1990s.

Going without running water for a year has made hygiene hard, Kelly acknowledged: "It's kind of like I've been in the woods camping for a year".

The Charlie Brown effect also affect you in space, where fluids in the face make astronauts more round-cheeked than they typically are on Earth.

He has now spent the most cumulative time in space of any American in history.

We're all looking forward to interstellar travel and colonising Mars, but first we've got a lot to learn about how the human body responds to the cold dark void of outer space.

Kelly is not the only member of his family to visit the station. NASA needs a better understanding of these and other unknown health risks over time before committing humans to a 2.5-year round-trip journey to Mars.

Mr Kelly's 340-day mission - the longest by 125 days for NASA - will end on Wednesday in Kazakhstan. Kelly was selected for the mission because... The world record for a single spaceflight is 438 days, set by a Russian cosmonaut in the 1990s. He was sharing handsome photos from space of the first grown flower in space and breath taking pictures of Earth from there.

Charles stresses that Mars travel will be different than a space station stay.

Scott Kelly's twin, Mark, is a retired astronaut, so scientists will compare the brothers to see how Scott's DNA, proteins, gut microbes, immune system, and cognitive performance changed relative to Mark's. Others, especially the recovery of muscle and bone mass, will take much longer, perhaps a year - equal to how long Kelly was in space - or possibly longer.

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