Scott Kelly: So far so good, staying here for a year is quite a long time, but we've flown before so we know what we're going to, the space station is an incredible place. We have a lot of opportunities and a lot of work here. Therefore, we are optimistic about the remaining 200 days, everything will go smoothly.

Mikhail Kornienko: I think space makes you look younger. It's a joke, of course, but at the same time, we do the exercises twice a day and, as Scott said, I can confirm, we are optimistic, and I believe that after my year-long mission, I will be even in better shape than before the mission. .

As I understand it, before the mission you communicated well. Are you still friends?

Scott: Absolutely, and even more so now. We spend a lot of time here together, it strengthens the bond between us. A great place to build relationships and international partnerships. And this is one of the most beautiful facets of this space station. its international aspect.

Misha: We are still friends, and we will be friends to the end!

What makes this flight different from regular missions?

Scott: It's unique in its duration - compared to our participation in human experiments, Mikhail and I are certainly more involved than the average crew members. 400 scientific experiments will be carried out here in a year, so our participation is measurably higher than that of anyone who stays here for half a year. But from a daily perspective, our life here is no different from that of other members.

You are working together during this year - what would that say in light of the work on earth? What can we learn?

Scott: I think the space station, this no-man's-land, so to speak, with rather difficult conditions, gives us the opportunity to work on something very important and very difficult. This is one of the biggest successes of the space station. We get excellent results from scientific work. From all this you can learn a lot and a lot of new things.


Scott, what did you learn from the Russians?

I learn all sorts of things from these guys all the time. They have a lot of experience. Their experience of long stay in space is much wider than ours. They do some things differently. They are more practical. Their budget is smaller than NASA's, so it's great to see what they can achieve with very limited resources. It's impressive.

Mikhail, what have you learned while working with the Americans?

I must say that the Americans can learn a lot. First of all, they are all very focused, very meticulous, especially when performing their tasks and work, and I think that there will still be something to learn from our partners, and in general, we learn something new from each other every day.

They are all very friendly, and I can't say that I was angry or sad before, but our American friends are very friendly, so I learn from them also.

People want to know how this space flight changed your view of humanity's role on planet Earth?

Scott: Every time I fly into space, I'm amazed at how small the Earth seems and how we all start to seem like citizens of the same whole, rather than different countries. You do not see the political boundaries that are drawn on the maps, you only see the physical boundaries. There is a feeling that we are all part of one big team, the Earth team. The only thing that scares me is that the atmosphere seems very thin and very fragile. These two main things have changed my point of view throughout my career.


Is your preparation helping you?

Scott: Absolutely. We have a great team on the ground, an international team, not only in the US, but also in Russia, Japan, Europe, Canada, which has been training us for many years for these missions. There are some things you don't understand until you get here though, and it's impossible to truly mimic microgravity. By and large, we are very well prepared and this is thanks to the people who are on the ground.

Have your dreams changed?

Scott (laughs): I had an interesting dream last night, but I won't tell you… Anyway, I was asked after my last flight if dreams are different on Earth and in space, and I couldn't remember. So now I write down my dreams, and most of them are about being on Earth, but sometimes I also dream of a space station. In general, you know that people have strange dreams.

Meanwhile, the time allotted by the "Earth team" came to an end. During our 10-minute conversation, the ISS passed over Colombia and Brazil. One can only guess what Scott Kelly dreamed about in space.

We take advances in space technology for granted. When I was a kid, I built elaborate moon bases out of cardboard boxes, my bedroom curtains were decorated with images of aviation history, and my favorite book was a book about shuttles. I never imagined that one day I would be talking to astronauts traveling in orbit at a speed of 27,000 kilometers per hour, 400 kilometers above the planet.

MOSCOW, February 2 - RIA Novosti. NASA scientists have summed up the first results of an experiment on monitoring the health of Scott Kelly, who lived on board the ISS for more than a year, and his brother Mark Kelly, who lived at that time in similar conditions on Earth, reports Space.com

“Scott Kelly’s telomeres began to lengthen in space, which may be due to reduced food intake and increased levels of physical activity aboard the ISS. But when he returned to Earth, the telomeres began to shorten again. Interestingly, in November, the telomeres of both Scott and Mark decreased, which may be due to some disturbing event in their family life," said NASA representatives, quoted by Space.com.

Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes that protect them from breakage, and throughout a person's life they are gradually shortened. The reduction of telomeres to a certain critical point puts the cell into "old age mode", turning it off from the body's work.

In other words, we can say that life in space, for some unknown reasons, leads to the fact that the process of cellular aging either stops completely or even reverses.

Scott Kelly and Mark Kelly, according to NASA, participated in a curious experiment in which US space agency doctors tried to evaluate how life in orbit affects human health. Scott and Mark are identical twins and their lives were similar - both of them are astronauts, which allowed scientists to solve this problem in the most rigorous way.

Taking samples of blood and other tissues before and after a year-long "mission" to the ISS, NASA medics compared them and identified several other interesting changes, in addition to the lengthening of telomeres, that life in space has caused.

For example, prolonged life in space, as scientists previously suspected, leads to a slowdown in the rate of bone formation, and also causes small negative changes in the speed and accuracy of memory. Both negative factors, according to NASA, were not large enough to cause serious problems for human health when traveling to the Moon or Mars.

Another interesting observation was the discovery that life in space can increase inflammation by increasing the level of fats and hormones in the body, and the composition of the microflora in the intestines of Scott Kelly changed markedly during life in orbit. After he returned to Earth, both returned to normal.

More interestingly, identical twins were not completely identical from a genetic point of view - deciphering their RNA and DNA showed that over 200,000 signal RNAs that regulate the work of various genes were contained in Scott and Mark's cells in different quantities. These differences, as scientists note, could be caused both by newly acquired mutations and by the very fact of getting into space. What exactly gave rise to them, biologists promised to find out during the subsequent analysis of the samples.

The final report on the health of the Kelly twins will be published in the second half of the year in a prestigious scientific journal, according to NASA. These data and publications, the researchers hope, will help NASA and the entire Earth as a whole prepare for a trip to Mars and other planets.

• Translation

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year in space on the ISS. His recollection of this unprecedented test of human endurance and physical exertion raises questions about the possibility of future missions to Mars.

Scott Kelly inside the Soyuz simulator before the mission. This capsule will be a lifesaver in case of a disaster.

[He was the first American astronaut to stay in space for that long. In addition, this mission used new equipment that had not been used before, which recorded in detail the condition of the crew. Absolute space records belong to the Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who spent a total of 878 days in space, and Valery Polyakov - he spent 437 days and 18 hours non-stop at the Mir station, now defunct / approx. transl.]

I sit at the head of the dining room table at my home in Houston, Texas, finishing lunch with my family: my longtime companion Amiko, my twin brother Mark, his ex-Congressman wife Gabby Giffords, their daughter Claudia, our Richie's father and my daughters, Samantha and Charlotte. It's an everyday thing to sit at the table, eat lunch with your loved ones, and many do it every day without really thinking about it. But personally, I dreamed about it for almost a year.

I have so often imagined how I would participate in this dinner. Now that I'm finally here, he doesn't seem quite real to me. The faces of the people I love, whom I haven't seen in such a long time, the chatter of several people at the same time, the clink of appliances, the gurgling of wine in glasses - all these are unfamiliar sounds. Even the feeling of gravity holding me in my chair seems strange to me, and every time I put down my glass or put my fork on the table, part of me looks for a piece of Velcro or a piece of duct tape that should hold them.

It's March 2016 and I've already spent exactly 48 hours on Earth after a year in space. I push off the table and struggle to get up, feeling like an old man getting out of a chair.

“That’s it, I can’t take it anymore,” I announce. Everyone laughs and invites me to rest. I walk in the direction of the bedroom - 20 steps from the chair to the bed. On the third step, the floor suddenly pulls out from under me and I trip over a flower pot. Of course, it's not about the floor - it's my vestibular system trying to cope with gravity. I'm getting used to walking again.

“This is the first time I see you tripping,” Mark says. "You're doing well." A former astronaut, Mark knows from his own experience what it's like to return to Earth. I walk beside Samantha and put my hand on her shoulder as she smiles at me.

I make it to the bedroom without incident and close the door. My whole body hurts. All joints, all muscles protest against the oppressive gravity. I also feel nauseous, although I haven't vomited. I take off my clothes, climb into bed, feeling the sheet with pleasure, the light pressure of the blanket on my body, the splendor of the pillow under my head.

I missed all of this last year. I can hear my family's cheerful conversations behind a closed door - I haven't heard these voices in a long time without the distortion caused by telephone links jumping between satellites. I fall asleep to the soothing sound of their conversation and laughter.

A streak of light wakes me up. It's morning already? No, it's Amiko going to bed. I only slept a couple of hours, but I feel disoriented. I have to strain my strength just to start moving and tell her how bad I feel. Now I am very sick, shivering, and the pain has intensified. I didn't feel this way after the previous mission. It's much worse.

Amiko, I finally manage to say. She is worried when she hears my voice.

"What?" Her hand is on my wrist and then on my forehead.

Her skin seems cool to me, but that's because I'm hot. "I'm not well," I say.

Last year, I spent 340 days with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail "Misha" Kornienko on the International Space Station (ISS). We are working on a program that is part of NASA's planned trip to Mars. It is designed to monitor the effects that occur during long-term stay in space. This is my fourth spaceflight, and by the end of the mission, I will have spent 520 days there, more than any other NASA astronaut. Amiko has been through this before and was my main support when I spent 159 days on the ISS in 2010-2011. I also experienced the effects of returning to Earth then, but they weren't close to what I feel today.

ISS

I can hardly get up. I find the edge of the bed. I lower my legs. I sit down. I get up. At every step, I feel like I'm fighting quicksand. When I finally get upright, I feel terrible pain in my legs, and besides that, I feel something more frightening: how blood rushes down to my legs. It's kind of like when you're standing on your hands and the blood is rushing to your head - just the other way around.

I feel the tissues in my legs swell. I struggle to make my way to the bathroom, shifting my weight from foot to foot with sheer effort. Left. Right. Left. Right. I go to the bathroom, turn on the light and look at my feet. These are swollen, foreign stumps, and not legs at all. “Oh shit,” I say. “Amiko, look.” She gets on her knees and squeezes her ankle, and it shrinks like a water balloon. She looks up with excitement in her eyes. "I can't even feel the bones in my ankle," she says.

“Yes, my skin is on fire,” I tell her. Amiko quickly examines me. I developed a strange rash on my back, on the back of my legs, on the back of my head and neck - everywhere in those places that touched the bed. I feel her cold hands touch my hot skin. “It looks like an allergic rash,” she says. “Like hives.”

I do my chores in the bathroom and crawl back into bed thinking about what to do. Normally, waking up feeling like this, I'd go to 911. But no one in the hospital saw the symptoms appear after a year spent in space. I crawl back into bed, trying to figure out a way to lie down without touching the rash."

I hear Amiko rummaging through the first aid kit. She returns with two ibuprofen and a glass of water. She sits next to me, and in her every movement, in every breath, I feel how she worries about me. We both knew the risks of the mission I signed up for. After six years spent together, I understand her perfectly, even without words and in the dark.

I try to sleep and think about whether my friend Misha, back in Moscow, is suffering from swollen legs and a rash. I suspect so. That is why we signed up for this mission: to find out the details of how the human body is affected by long-term space flight. Scientists will study data from Misha and from 53-year-old me for the rest of our lives and beyond. Our space agencies won't be able to hurl us further into space, somewhere to Mars, until we can learn more about strengthening the weakest links in the chain that makes space travel possible: the human body and mind.

I am often asked why I volunteered for this mission knowing all the risks: the risk of launch, the risk of spacewalk, the risk of reentry, the risk of being in a metal container orbiting the Earth at a speed of 28,100 km/h. I have several answers to this question, but none completely satisfies me. None provide a complete answer.

Scott Kelly (left) performs a dangerous spacewalk from the ISS

Typically, a mission to the ISS lasts from 5 to 6 months, so scientists have a large stock of data describing what happens to the human body in space over such a period. But very little is known about what happens after six months. Symptoms, for example, may sharply worsen after nine months, or, conversely, remain unchanged. We don't know, and there's only one way to find out.

During our mission, Misha and I collected a lot of data about ourselves for further study, which took quite a lot of time. Mark and I are identical twins, so I also took part in an in-depth year-long study that compared us to him down to the genetic level. The ISS was a world-class laboratory, and in addition to the human experiments, in which I was one of the main subjects of study, I also spent a lot of time working on other experiments - fluid physics, botany, combustion, and observation of the Earth.

When I tell the audience about the ISS, I always explain the importance of the scientific research being done there. But it was also important to me that this station serves as a stronghold for our species in space. From there, we can learn more about how to move forward. But both the risks and the payoff were high.

On my previous flight to the space station, which lasted 159 days, I lost bone tissue, my muscles atrophied, my blood redistributed throughout my body, causing the walls of my heart to tighten and contract. Worse, I had vision problems, like many other astronauts. The exposure was 30 or more times greater than that of a person on Earth - it was equal to about 10 fluorography per day. This exposure increased my risk of developing a fatal cancer for the rest of my life.

But none of this compares to the worst risk: that something terrible will happen to someone I love while I'm in space with no way to return home.

I've been at the station for a week now, and I'm already better able to figure out where I am than after I woke up for the first time. If I had a headache, I knew it was because I swam too far away from the fan blowing in my face. Yet I still lost my bearings quite often: I woke up sure that I was upside down, because in the dark, without gravity, my inner ear made a random guess about the location of the body in a limited space. After turning on the light, I experienced an illusion, it seemed to me that the room was rapidly rotating and taking the desired position around me, although I knew that in fact it was my brain adapting to new data from the senses.

It took a minute for the light in my room to warm up to full brightness. There was barely enough room for me, a sleeping bag, two laptops, a handful of clothes, toiletries, photos of Amiko and my daughters, and a few books. I reviewed my schedule for today. He looked through the mail, stretched, yawned, rummaged through the bag of supplies tied to the wall at the left knee in search of toothpaste and brush. I brushed my teeth without getting out of the sleeping bag, swallowed the paste and washed it down with water from the bag with a straw. There is nowhere to spit in space.

I did not have the opportunity to spend time outside the station until the first of two planned spacewalks, which did not occur until seven months after arrival. The fact that you can't get out of a space station whenever you want is one of those things that people find hard to imagine. The procedure for putting on a space suit and going into space takes many hours, requiring the full attention of at least three people on the station, and dozens on Earth.

A spacewalk is the most dangerous thing we've ever done in orbit. Even if the station caught fire, if it filled with poisonous gas, if a meteor pierced the habitation module and outer space rushed in, the only way to escape from the station was the Soyuz capsule, which also required a lot of planning and preparation to launch. We regularly trained in emergency situations, and on many occasions we tried to get the Soyuz ready for launch as quickly as possible. No one had yet had to use the Soyuz as a lifeboat, and everyone hoped that they would not have to.

I opened the food container tied to the wall and fished out a bag of dehydrated coffee with cream and sugar. I swam up to a boiler located in the ceiling of the laboratory, which poured boiling water by inserting a needle into a special tip in a bag. When it was full, I replaced the needle with a drinking straw - in this case, the liquid could not spill into the module. At first it was surprisingly unpleasant to drink coffee through a straw from a plastic bag, but now I don’t care anymore.

I looked through the breakfast options, looking for a bag of granola, which I liked. Unfortunately, everyone else liked her too. I had to select dehydrated eggs and restore them all from the same boiler, and reheat the sausages in a reheat box that looked like a metal briefcase. I cut open the bag, then, since we did not have a sink, I cleaned the scissors by licking them (we each have our own scissors). I took the eggs out of the bag with a spoon and placed them on the tortilla - good thing the surface tension held them in place - added sausages, sauce, wrapped and ate this burrito while watching the morning news on CNN.

During this whole process, I kept myself in one place, sticking my toe under the handrail on the floor. Handrails were placed on the walls, floors and ceilings of each module, as well as at the hatches connecting the modules, which allowed us to launch ourselves into flight through the modules, or stay in place without floating away from it. Many features of life in zero gravity were interesting - but not food. I missed being able to sit in a chair while eating, relax, and pause for conversations with others.

More than 400 experiments were carried out during this expedition to the ISS. NASA scientists divided research into two broad categories. The first was related to research that could benefit life on Earth. This included research into the properties of chemicals that could be used in new drugs, the properties of combustion to use fuel more efficiently, and the development of new materials. The second category addressed the challenges of future space exploration: testing new life-sustaining equipment, solving the technical challenges of space flight, and exploring new ways to meet the demands of the human body in space.

Science occupied about a third of my time, and the study of man - three-quarters of this amount. I had to take samples of my blood and the blood of my colleagues, which would then be analyzed on Earth, I kept a diary of everything from food eaten to mood swings. I tested my reaction at different times of the day. I did ultrasound of blood vessels, heart, eyes and muscles. I also took part in an experiment with the movement of fluids in the body - a special device pumped blood to the lower part of my body, where it is usually held by gravity. It was a test of the leading theory explaining the vision problems of some astronauts.

But in fact, research from the two categories often overlapped. If we can learn how to prevent the devastating effects of bone loss in microgravity, the solutions could then be applied to treat osteoporosis and other bone diseases. If you can figure out how to keep your heart healthy in space, that knowledge could come in handy on Earth as well.

The effects of living in space are very similar to the effects of aging that we all experience. We grew lettuce while studying the future of space travel—astronauts heading to Mars will only have fresh food that they grow themselves—but it also taught us how to grow food efficiently on Earth. The closed water supply system on the ISS, where we process our urine and turn it into clean water, will be critical for missions to Mars, but it also has promising applications for water treatment on Earth, especially in places where clean water is scarce.

I told the flight surgeon, Steve, that I was well enough to go back to work as soon as I got back from space, and I did—but after a few days, I felt much worse. That's what happens when you let your body be used for scientific purposes. I'll be a test subject for the rest of my life. But a few months after returning to Earth, I already felt much better. I traveled around the country and around the world, talking about the time spent in space. It's nice to see how people are interested in my mission, how many children instinctively feel interest and think about flying into space, and how many people, along with me, believe that Mars will be our next step.

I also know that if we want to go to Mars, it will be a very, very difficult task, it will be very expensive both in money and probably in human lives. But now I know that if we decide to do it, we can.

Excerpt from the book "

Astronaut: Scott Joseph Kelly (2/21/1964)

• 247th US astronaut (393rd in the world)
• Flight duration:
• 7 days 23 hours 11 minutes (1999)
• 12 days 17 hours 55 minutes (2007)
• 159 days 8 hours 43 minutes (2010)
• 340 days 8 hours 42 minutes (2015)

Scott Kelly was born on February 21, 1964 in a small town called Orange, New Jersey. His twin brother Mark Kelly was also born with him. In 1982, the brothers graduated from high school in the city they consider their home - West Orange. In 1987, Scott received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Maritime College of New York University. After graduating from higher education, the future astronaut goes to serve in the state navies. In the summer of 1989, he completed flight training and served as a naval pilot at the Beeville Naval Air Station, Texas. He also served the next few years in the Oceania Navy, Virginia, and aboard the aircraft carrier carrying his fighter squadron.

From 1993 to 1994, Scott Kelly was trained at the Fighter Pilot School, after which he was sent to serve in the Test Squadron as a test pilot. He became the first to test a fighter called the F-14, which housed a new experimental control system. During his service, Scott mastered more than 30 types of aircraft, flew more than 3,500 hours and completed more than 250 landings on board an aircraft carrier.

In 1996, future astronaut Scott Kelly graduated with a master's degree in aeronautical systems from the University of Tennessee.

space training

On May 1, 1996, Navy lieutenants Scott Kelly and his twin brother Mark Kelly became NASA astronaut candidates. From 1996 to 1998, the brothers underwent general space training, and in 1998 they qualified as a shuttle pilot.

The first flight

On December 19, 1999, a team of 7 astronauts, including Scott Kelly as a pilot, set off aboard the Discovery STS-103 shuttle to orbit the Earth. The goal of the American astronauts was to repair the Hubble telescope, as well as to install new equipment. For the full-fledged operation of the joint NASA and ESA Hubble project, the device required six gyroscopes, of which only three worked by 1999.

In November 1999, one of them also failed, as a result of which the observatory was completely unsuitable for observation.

On December 22, the shuttle "captured" the telescope for further work. Three eight-hour space walks were made, during which the crew replaced broken gyroscopes, installed a more powerful on-board computer and some other instruments. On December 25, 1999, the Hubble telescope undocked from the Discovery STS-103 shuttle, and on December 28, the shuttle landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

In 2000, Scott Kelly was the NASA representative in Russia, where he was involved in space operations related to the ISS. In March 2001, he was trained at the TsPK im. Gagarin as an onboard engineer for the backup crew of the Soyuz-TM spacecraft for the flight to the ISS. In December 2002, he was trained as the crew commander of STS-118, but due to the crash of another shuttle, Columbia (STS-107), all shuttle flights were suspended.

Second flight

On August 8, 2007, the second flight of Scott Kelly began. The astronaut joined the crew of the Endeavor STS-118 spacecraft. The task of the astronaut team, consisting of seven people, was to deliver and install the S5 segment of the ISS. On the delivered segment, the mass of which is 1584 kg, solar panels were subsequently fixed. This modernization made it possible to significantly increase the power supply of the station, and to conduct more energy-consuming experiments. The spacecraft commander Scott Kelly, as well as the entire crew, spent more than 10 days in orbit, after which they undocked from the station. On August 21, Space Shuttle Endeavor STS-118 landed safely on one of the runways at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral.

Having received the rank of Commander of the Navy, Scott Kelly began training for space flight on the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-18 (later Soyuz TMA-20) as a crew member of Expeditions 23 and 24 to the ISS. In September 2010, he was finally approved for the role of an onboard engineer for the Soyuz TMA-M crew.

Third flight

On October 7, 2010, the Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft was launched, on board of which, in addition to Scott Kelly, there were cosmonauts A. Kaleri and. The Russian-American crew stayed at the station for 5 months, after which, on March 16, 2011, the Soyuz TMA-16M descent vehicle successfully delivered the cosmonauts to Earth.

The training of Scott Kelly in the ranks of Russian cosmonauts continued. The American astronaut was several times assigned to the crews of various expeditions to the ISS. In March 2015, the State Commission held a meeting at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, as a result of which Scott Kelly was appointed to the position of Soyuz TMA-16M onboard engineer.

Fourth flight

The fourth and longest space flight of astronaut Scott Kelly began on March 27, 2015, when the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft launched from Baikonur. The crew also included cosmonauts and. The crew that arrived on board the station officially became a member of Expeditions 43 and 44 to the ISS. A group of astronauts was engaged in the study of the reaction of the human body to a long stay in space, as well as the collection of research data. The study differed from the previous ones in the presence of new tools. Gennady Padalka left the station earlier, while Kelly and Kornienko stayed on the ISS for almost a year. Thus, Scott Kelly became the first American to live in Earth orbit for 12 consecutive months. In addition, the American astronaut set a national record for the time spent in space during one flight, as well as for the total flight time (520 days).

On March 2, 2016, Scott Kelly, together with cosmonauts Volkov and Kornienko, undocked from the station and went to Earth. Astronaut Scott Kelly spent 340 days in orbit.

Further activities

Scott Kelly has made four space flights and received numerous awards for his contributions to the world of space. On April 1, 2016, the distinguished American astronaut retired from the astronaut corps and from the space agency.