It’s been six months since astronaut Scott Kelly set up camp in the International Space Station.
He’s halfway through his one-year stint, which will be the longest time among any U.S. astronaut has been in space.
To mark the midpoint of his mission, Kelly did a Q&A on Twitter on Saturday afternoon, inviting social media users to ask him whatever they wanted to learn about his time on the International Space Station.
Kelly’s takeaways from six months in space
— Kelly is more concerned about running than walking when he gets back to Earth.
— There are ways to combat muscle atrophy in space.
— You can still have allergies way up there.
— Communicating back to Earth from space is sort of like the ’90s.
— There’s no such thing as laundry when you’re orbiting the planet.
— One year is a really long time in space.
A yearlong mission
Most expeditions to the space station last for about four to six months. However, NASA hopes that by doubling the time a person spends in space it can understand the effects long-duration spaceflight has on the human body.
The experiment will help NASA better understand how the human body will cope with longer journeys deeper into our solar system, which includes traveling to Mars, an expedition that could last 500 or more days.
Kelly’s time orbiting the Earth for a year can also have benefits for people living on the planet, helping find new methods for treating people recovering from prolonged bed rests and monitoring bodies that cannot fight infections.
Nearly every part of a person’s body, from their eyes, heart, muscles to their bones, is affected in zero gravity. NASA is doing a comparative genetics tests with Kelly’s twin brother, Mark Kelly (husband to former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords), who is here on Earth.
While Scott Kelly has been up in space, he has kept busy, working on NASA experiments — astronauts conduct about 200 experiments on their missions. Kelly is doing 400 experiments while he’s on ISS.
During Kelly’s first six months, NASA grew lettuce in space and gave the astronauts a taste sample. Although NASA gets plenty of prepared food from supply ships, the space agency needs to find a way to grow food in space and other planets in order to make long space trips feasible.
In his free time, Kelly writes, answers emails and occasionally watches television. He’s incredibly active on social media.
The veteran astronaut’s Twitter feed has dazzled Earthlings with gripping photos, capturing the planet’s varied terrain, documenting weather patterns and taking snapshots of Earth’s neighbors Venus and Mars.
Kelly’s one year mission will break several space endurance records. He’s scheduled to be in space for 522 days, surpassing the previous U.S. record of 382 days in space. Kelly isn’t spending the yearlong mission alone, though.
He is accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. The two, plus Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who stayed for six months on ISS, launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on March 27.