Astronaut Scott Kelly has just spent 340 days in space. He says that Himalayan lakes, spacewalks and the US presidential campaign helped him to stay sane during his mission. It was the longest mission ever. “It seemed like I lived there forever,” Kelly said. He had been on several missions before but said that his biggest surprise was how long this mission felt. “Maybe, sometimes, you go bananas, ” he said.
Kelly and a Russian astronaut, Mikhail Kornienko, spent nearly a year on the International Space Station (ISS). They studied the effects on humans of weightlessness, radiation and the cramped conditions of spaceflight. This is research that NASA thinks is very important for a future mission to Mars.
Kelly said the length of the mission was the most difficult thing. He felt more pain after he returned to gravity than after shorter trips. Kelly and his twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut, have spent the last year taking physical and mental tests. The tests will continue, to help NASA learn about what happens to the human body during spaceflight. Kelly described the sense of wonder he felt after he landed back on Earth. When the Russian capsule opened, he felt the cool air of Kazakhstan and smelled “a smell like a plant was blooming in that area”. It was the fresh air mixed with the burnt, “sweet” smell of a spacecraft that had just re- entered through the Earth’s atmosphere.
When he left the spacecraft, he said, he began to understand the importance of the mission: 340 days on a 15-year-old space station which is “a million pounds, the size of a football field, with the space, some say, of a six-bedroom house”. The ISS, he said, is a place that uses the power of the sun and an international team helped to build it. “The view is great, too,” he said.
Kelly posted amazing photos on social media of the Earth ’s cities, countryside, oceans and atmosphere. “The Earth is a beautiful planet,” he said. He described the beautiful waters around the Bahamas and the rainbow colours of the lakes of the northern Himalayas. But “the main thing you notice is how thin the atmosphere is,” Kelly said. “It is scary to see the thin atmosphere, together with large areas of pollution.”
He said he could see large areas of pollution: smoke clouds from wildfires cover parts of the US, parts of Asia have pollution nearly all year. He said the message “we need to save the planet” was slightly wrong: “The planet will get better; it’s us that won’t be here because we’ll destroy the environment.” “We must take care of the air we breathe and the water we drink. And I believe we do have a big effect on that and we have the ability to change it, if we want to.” Kelly was very active on social media so many people follow him online. But he said he didn’t know about it – instead, he watched the news and especially the 2016 US presidential campaign. The news helped keep him sane, he said, and also work: “I looked forward to the next event – for example, the next spacewalk, the next science experiment. That made a difference to me.” Being back on Earth with everyone still felt strange, he said.
Kelly said that he would probably not fly again with NASA. “But I don’t think I would ever say I’m absolutely, 100% finished,” he said. Maybe he will fly with private spaceflight companies, which are becoming more and more popular. “They might need a guy like me someday,” he said. “Maybe, in the next 20 years, you’ll be able to buy a cheap ticket, just go for a little visit.”