A record stint in space and Scott Kelly ready for more
After 334 consecutive days in space, astronaut Scott Kelly is ready for more — a lot more.
Kelly has spent more time in orbit on a single mission than any other U.S. astronaut, but he said Thursday he could hold out even longer. He is scheduled to return to Earth on Tuesday, capping his time off the planet at a little more than 11 months.
“I could go another year if I had to. It would just depend on what I was doing and if it would make a difference, although I look forward to getting home next week,” Kelly said during a news conference from the International Space Station, the floating laboratory home to a crew of six.
The first thing he’ll do back home in Houston after completing medical tests: “I’m going to go home and jump in my pool,” said Kelly, who celebrated his 52nd birthday Sunday.
The medical tests are likely to delay his dip. Kelly and Russian crewmate Mikhail Kornienko are the subjects of extensive studies on how the human body tolerates long missions in space. Such knowledge is crucial for eventually sending astronauts to Mars.
Kelly’s value to science is even higher as half of the only pair of astronaut identical twins. Scott’s twin, Mark, who retired from the astronaut corps in 2011 and kept his feet on the ground during his brother’s latest flight, is undergoing many of the same tests.
Though this is Scott Kelly’s second stint on the space station and his fourth space flight overall, space still feels alien, he said. That’s coming from an astronaut who — upon his return — will have tallied 520 days up there.
“It’s somewhat of a harsh environment,” he said. “You don’t feel perfectly normal.”