![]() Even before the walk itself, you spend weeks preparing and studying. What were the most testing aspects of your first space walk? With current technology, to go to the nearest Earth-like planet outside the solar system would take about 80,000 years Scott Kelly It was a possibility I tried to avoid contemplating too much when I did it myself for the first time. What would have happened if he hadn’t fortuitously hit an antenna that bounced him back?įrankly, he would have died – either from rising CO 2 or losing oxygen. On one of your previous missions, a cosmonaut became untethered during a space walk. Type one kind of fun is fun while you’re doing it, like a carnival ride. I think it’s like that type two kind of fun. Hopefully, when people get to that part of the book, it’ll make them feel like they’re there. Going to Mars and back is not going to require artificial gravity, but if you wanted to go to the moons of Saturn some day, it probably would.Ī selfie taken by Kelly while on board the International Space Station, 12 July 2015. There probably needs to be some kind of artificial gravity as part of the spacecraft. People are going to spend years in space and they’ll want to get back to somewhere with gravity. ![]() If you’re going to Mars, I think that’s doable. If you had no choice, you could probably live there for years. I think it would depend on what they’re doing and what you want them to do when they’re done being in space. It gives you a different perspective on our planet, which is a very beautiful oasis in our solar system, but at the same time has a lot of challenges and struggles: the environment, a lot of war and conflict and hardship.ĭo you think there’s a limit to how long people can physically and mentally stay up in space? On the one hand you’re aware what’s going on on Earth, but the fact that you’re not on it does make you feel a little bit separate. You’re connected with email and you can make phone calls and follow the news. You’re stuck with a handful of people for months on end. What about the sense of being cut off from humanity. ![]() I was already six minutes younger than Mark but, as Einstein predicted, I’ve come back six minutes and 13 milliseconds younger after a year in space. It’s the opposite of what the scientists expected, given the challenging environment on the ISS, exposure to radiation, etc. The one big find so far was that my telomeres, basically these things at the end of our chromosomes that shorten with stress and age, actually ended up longer than Mark’s. It takes three to five years for the results to be published, so we don’t really know much about the conclusions yet. Mostly genetic research but also cognitive studies. The psychological effect, at least for me, being in this controlled environment and being told what to do and when to do it for a year, and then coming back and not having that type of structure, it’s definitely a challenge.ĭo you know what the twin study of you and your brother was focused on? And have you been told about any results? The effects of radiation at a genetic level – I don’t know what they’ll be. Then there’s things you can’t feel: bone loss, muscle loss, structural changes in my eyes. You regain it when you get back very quickly but what you don’t regain is the red blood cells you lost with it and that takes months to recover. In space you lose a significant amount of blood volume. ![]() Physically there’s stiffness, swelling of my legs, rashes where my skin hasn’t touched anything, nausea. What’s the psychological and physical effect of literally coming back to Earth?
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