Some of them became astronauts, and that was a real job too.
These young men, flying jets in the Navy, did a real job that existed in the real world.
This was something more like a life plan. This wasn’t just an exciting adventure story. I have a few answers I give to this question, but none of them feels fully satisfying to me. People often ask me why I volunteered for this mission, knowing the risks-the risk of launch, the risk inherent in spacewalks, the risk of returning to Earth, the risk I would be exposed to every moment I lived in a metal container orbiting the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour.
#Endless space 2 ships are wire frames how to#
Our space agencies won’t be able to push out farther into space, to a destination like Mars, until we can learn more about how to strengthen the weakest links in the chain that makes spaceflight possible: the human body and mind. Scientists will study the data on Misha and me for the rest of our lives and beyond. This is why we volunteered for this mission, after all: to discover how the human body is affected by long-term spaceflight. I’ve been back on Earth for forty-eight hours.Īs I try to will myself to sleep, I wonder whether my friend Mikhail Kornienko is also suffering from swollen legs and painful rashes-Misha is home in Moscow after spending nearly a year in space with me. Even the sensation of gravity holding me in my chair feels strange, and every time I put a glass or fork down on the table there’s a part of my mind that is looking for a dot of Velcro or a strip of duct tape to hold it in place. The faces of the people I love that I haven’t seen for so long, the chatter of many people talking together, the clink of silverware, the swish of wine in a glass-these are all unfamiliar.
I contemplated what it would be like to eat this meal so many times, now that I’m finally here, it doesn’t seem entirely real. For me, it’s something I’ve been dreaming of for almost a year. It’s a simple thing, sitting at a table and eating a meal with those you love, and many people do it every day without giving it much thought. I’M SITTING AT the head of my dining room table at home in Houston, finishing dinner with my family: my longtime girlfriend, Amiko my daughters, Samantha and Charlotte my twin brother, Mark his wife, Gabby his daughter, Claudia our father, Richie and Amiko’s son, Corbin. A Rendering of the International Space Station.Here, in his personal story, we see the triumph of the human imagination, the strength of the human will, and the boundless wonder of the galaxy. Kelly’s humanity, compassion, humor, and passion resonate throughout, as he recalls his rough-and-tumble New Jersey childhood and the youthful inspiration that sparked his astounding career, and as he makes clear his belief that Mars will be the next, ultimately challenging step in American spaceflight.Ī natural storyteller and modern-day hero, Kelly has a message of hope for the future that will inspire for generations to come. He describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both existential and banal: the devastating effects on the body the isolation from everyone he loves and the comforts of Earth the pressures of constant close cohabitation the catastrophic risks of depressurization or colliding with space junk, and the still more haunting threat of being unable to help should tragedy strike at home-an agonizing situation Kelly faced when, on another mission, his twin brother’s wife, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot while he still had two months in space.
Now, he takes us inside a sphere utterly inimical to human life. The veteran of four space flights and the American record holder for consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few have. A stunning memoir from the astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station-a candid account of his remarkable voyage, of the journeys off the planet that preceded it, and of his colorful formative years.
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