Scott Kelly won't leave for his next mission in space for another two years, but the astronaut is already bracing himself for the unprecedented year-long journey. He believes it will feel something like climbing Mount Everest.
"It's fun when you're done with it, not while you're doing it," Kelly said Wednesday, according to Associated Press.
Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko were assigned to the marathon flight aboard the International Space Station just over a week ago.
Set to begin in 2015, the mission is designed as a kind of litmus test for even longer Mars expeditions in the future, according to ABC News.
"We'll hopefully set the stage for sending humans beyond low Earth orbit some day, and one day to Mars," Kelly said during a news conference Wednesday.
The yearlong mission will perform experiments in seven areas, including impacts to the astronauts' vision, immune system and bone mass, plus behavioral issues and challenges re-adapting to Earth's gravity.
Life on a space station can get quickly get monotonous, which is one of the biggest challenges it poses to astronauts psychologically, Kelly noted during a news conference.
"In the morning, you wake up, you're at work. When you go to sleep, you're also at work. So imagine being in your office for a whole year and you never get to leave," he said. "That is a challenge and it presents its own set of issues, but I think I'm up for it."
As far as the isolation from friends and family is concerned, Kelly says he already knows how he reacts to shocking news in space. While he was in a five-month space station mission that spanned 2010-2011, his sister-in-law, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in an assassination attempt in Tucson, Ariz. She is married to Kelly's identical twin, Mark, who retired as a NASA astronaut last year.
"Certainly, nothing good comes out of anything like this. But as a result, I do know how I respond to something along those lines," he said.
NASA selected Kelly from a shortlist of four astronauts for the assignment. Each had served as a commander aboard the space station, and was able to perform spacewalks and robot arm operations. Medical information also went into the selection. A crew member couldn't have exceeded his limit for exposure to cosmic radiation, for instance.
Kelly says he has no idea how or why he was chosen by NASA for the mission. His year in space will set a new U.S. space endurance record; no American has ever spent more than seven months in space at a time.
For Russia, though, this is nothing new. Cosmonauts already have experience with yearlong space travel, though it was limited to the old Mir space station and more than decade has now passed since those missions.
Four Russian cosmonauts have spent at least one uninterrupted year in space, and another two came close. Currently, Dr. Valery Polyakov has the record to beat with 14 months in a single uninterrupted session, according to USA Today.
"They all are alive and well today. Their health status is quite good for their age," said Dr. Igor Ushakov, director of the Institute for Biological Problems in Moscow.
Kelly admits he had doubts about the mission at first, but says the idea eventually won him over.
"The whole notion of it kind of slowly grew on me, over probably about a three- or four-month period," said Kelly, until he became "very excited about the opportunity."
© 2025 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
