By MARCIA DUNN
AP Aerospace Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – Once he returns from the Worldwide Space Station, NASA’s initial and only yearlong spaceman, Scott Kelly, will certainly try to pop up from a lying placement and stand still for three minutes.
He’ll take a crack at a mini-obstacle course and attempt to walk a straight line, heel to toe – all so researchers Can easily see whether he’d hit the ground operating if this were Mars rather than Earth.
NASA considers it most important prep job for future Mars explorers that will certainly have actually to spend much longer in space and won’t have actually the insight of a welcoming committee. In fact, this mission – which began along with a launch last March – is all regarding Mars.
“I believe we’ll learn a lot regarding longer-duration spaceflight and how that will certainly take us to Mars someday,” Kelly said Thursday in his final news conference from orbit. “So I’d like to believe that this is an additional of numerous steppingstones to us landing on Mars sometime in our future.”
Kelly’s 340-day mission – the longest by 125 days for NASA – pertains to a dramatic end Wednesday on the remote steppes of Kazakhstan. (It will certainly be Tuesday night in the U.S.) The astronaut will certainly ride a Soyuz spacecraft spine along with two Russians, including Mikhail Kornienko, his roommate for the past year.
Once from the capsule, the two will certainly submit to a multitude of field tests.
What could brand-new arrivals do on Mars, asks Dr. Stevan Gilmore, the lead flight surgeon that will certainly be at the landing site to receive Kelly. Could they jump up and down? Could they open a hatch? Could they do an immediate spacewalk?
The examinations on Kelly and Kornienko must offer some answers. There will certainly likewise be blood draws, heart monitoring and others medical exams. The testing will certainly go on for weeks otherwise months once they’re spine estate in Houston and at cosmonaut headquarters at Star City, Russia.
Checkups will certainly likewise go on for Kelly’s identical twin, retired astronaut Mark Kelly. The 52-year-old brothers joined forces to offer NASA along with a potential gold mine of scientific data: one twin studied for a year in orbit – two times the usual space station continue to be – while his genetic double underwent similar examinations on the ground.
While a handful of Russians have actually spent longer in space, the tape-record being a 438-day flight, those expeditions date spine to the 1980s and 1990s aboard the Mir space station, rustic otherwise rickety compared along with the current space station. Medical testing was spotty spine then, and the data weren’t always widely shared.
As of Thursday – Day 335 – Kelly professed to feeling very good. Indeed, flight surgeon Gilmore doesn’t expect any alarming results at touchdown.
Kelly’s vision has actually degraded a bit as it did throughout his last mission, a normal outcome for some astronauts due to increased tension inside the skull in weightlessness. He anticipates his bones and muscles have actually weakened as well, despite day-to-day exercise in orbit.
The real question mark – and Kelly’s biggest concern – is the feasible lingering effects of space radiation.
“Hopefully, I’ll never locate out Exactly what the true effects are of that,” Kelly said in a TV interview last week. NASA will certainly have to tackle the problem for Mars trips due to the increased level of exposure.
Johnson Space Focus physiologist John Charles puts the psychological adverse of long-duration spaceflight right up there along with radiation, as well as in-flight medical care and even meals preservation and packaging for the long haul.
“Simply regarding every little thing is a big problem for Mars,” Charles said in a phone interview.
Mars expeditions planned for the 2030s will certainly last 2½ years; the anticipated crew size will certainly be four to six. The astronauts will certainly almost definitely have actually to grow some of their own food; that’s the reason for an experimental greenhouse aboard the space station.
Kelly and his crewmates grew red romaine lettuce in the mini-hothouse last summer and sampled some of the crop.
Even a lot more impressive, Kelly nursed zinnias spine to health in January, displaying a lush orange and yellow bouquet on Valentine’s Day. He had to “channel my inner Mark Watney” – the lone astronaut that survives on potatoes in last year’s blockbuster movie “The Martian” – to save the zinnias from mold.
Trust me as quickly as to add water, Kelly urged Mission Control, not some preflight script. That’s how it will certainly have to be as quickly as astronauts venture to Mars, he gently reminded everyone.
Charles stresses that Mars travel will certainly be different compared to a space station stay. No regular phone chats along with the husbands, wives and children spine home. No constant whispering in the astronauts’ ears from Mission Control. Support would certainly come via email.
“They’re going to be highly autonomous,” Charles said of the Mars explorers, “and that’s something that we’re attempting to practice on the space station now … learning how to get hold of Mission Control from the spine pockets of the astronauts.”
Kelly points out that crew quarters on Mars-bound craft will certainly be much tighter compared to the space station – and nothing like the spaceships of science fiction. Between sleeping and working on his laptop, Kelly estimates he’s spent almost half his time inside his personal cubicle – regarding the size of a phone booth.
NASA will certainly have to improve privacy on Mars missions, he said, if it hopes to combat crew pressure and fatigue.
The toughest section for Kelly has actually been the physical isolation from everyone he loves, 250 miles below him. However on a trip to Mars, tens of millions of miles away, astronauts won’t have the ability to even see Earth.
“Obviously going to Mars, there are a lot of others challenges, However none of these we can’t overcome,” Kelly said.
NASA is discussing doing a lot more one-year flights along with the others countries involved in the station program; a lot more subjects are called for for a much better understanding of all the challenges. It’s a long time, no matter how you cut it. Simply ask Kelly, that recently acknowledged, “a year now appears longer compared to I believed it would certainly be.”
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