THEIR LOVE IS OUT OF THIS WORLD
Astronaut Scott Kelly, on a yearlong mission in space, and girlfriend Amiko Kauderer learn to live apart
SINCE the Trojan War, when Penelope sat home in Ithaca while Odysseus took his own sweet time coming home, women have waited for their men to return. (And, more recently, vice versa.)
But with her boyfriend, astronaut Scott Kelly, serving aboard the International Space Station, Amiko Kauderer can claim the ultimate long-distance relationship.
It’s not the first time Kelly’s career has kept them apart. From October 2010 to March 2011, Kelly also worked on the space station. This time, he’ll be gone for a year as NASA studies how the human body reacts to long-duration spaceflight.
The couple can’t be in the same room together for the duration of his stay, of course, so technology has become their best friend. But an iPad can’t do everything.
“One of the things I miss most is human touch, having someone touch back, holding hands,” Kauderer says.
Still, it’s better than his previous stint in space. Now they videochat once a week; last time, it was once a month. Kauderer can give Kelly a video tour of their house on her iPad.
Last time, emailing required a four- to six-hour delay; now it’s almost real time. “Now the only difference is time zones,” she says. The space station is on Greenwich Mean Time.
She still can’t telephone Kelly, though he can call her. She can spot the space station at any time on NASA’s tracking system. She sent him chocolate on a cargo ship.
The space station has had voice-over-IP since 2001, says NASA spokesman Dan Huot, which allows astronauts to make phone calls whenever they are in range of tracking and data-relay satellites. Kauderer, who is active on social media, often re-tweets Kelly.
Although this mission is twice as long as the previous one, Kauderer says in some ways it’s easier to handle. Last time, their relationship was about a year old, and they weren’t living together. “It felt like he moved to space,” she says. “It was an amazing time, and exciting. I didn’t know what I was getting into.”
This time, they’re an established couple of six years who share a house, and NASA recognizes Kauderer as Kelly’s partner. “The ‘gone’ part hasn’t hit me yet,” she said earlier this month. His mission began March 27.
Kauderer works in public affairs at NASA, which is how she came to know Kelly. They met a few times, and she knew his twin brother, astronaut Mark Kelly, but it wasn’t until one evening when they “talked for hours and hours,” she says, that she finally agreed to a date.
Now, except for the part about space, they have a life many people would recognize. Kauderer has two sons, 23 and 18. (The 18-year-old is graduating from high school and joining the Navy.) Kelly, 51, has two daughters, 20 and 11.
OK, with some parts not everyone could recognize: Kauderer, 42 this month, with her athletic figure, turquoise eyes and cascade of chocolate hair, tried out for the Texans’ cheerleader squad last year. She would have tried out this year, too, but she was seeing off Kelly in Russia.
Her unusual first name arises from the fact that, as she puts it, she was “made in Japan” while her father was in the Air Force. She was born in Minnesota but soon moved to China Spring, near Waco, and grew up the middle child of seven. She earned her degree at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.
She is adamant that this is not a poor-Amiko story. Kauderer believes fiercely that families dealing with military deployments to war zones have a far rougher road than hers. “I relate a lot to the blogs of spouses back home,” she says.
For her, the toughest part is knowing that no matter what happens back on Earth, Kelly can’t come home. “I have to be more cognizant of my own safety and wellness,” she says.
That point was driven home on Kelly’s previous mission when his twin’s wife, then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head at a constituent event in Tucson, Ariz. “It was horrific and awful,” Kauderer says. But he had to “focus on the job at hand,” she says.
Long-distance relationships aren’t all created equal, says Julia Babcock, associate professor at the University of Houston and co-director of the Center for Couples Therapy. (She is speaking of relationships in general, not Kelly and Kauderer’s.)
When duty is involved, be it war or space, that’s easier for a couple to weather than something more optional, such as moving away for a job or school. Both partners can understand the notion of duty.
But it’s still hard. “You have to make up for distance with a concerted effort to create moments of connection,” Babcock says. And if one party gets upset, it’s OK to talk about it. “Talk about your pain without the blame,” she recommends.
Meanwhile, Kauderer is keeping busy. She’s getting her scuba certification. “It’s not going to fly by,” she says of the year.
But it will end. “At the end, he will get back and we can say, ‘We did that.’ ”