IMAGES / VIDEOS – The astronaut Scott Kelly ends Wednesday stay 340 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), the longest continuously for an American astronaut. Back on some of its prowess over 300 km altitude.
While the International Space Station (ISS) celebrated fifteen years of human presence on board, it celebrates its first anniversary this March 2. Astronaut Scott Kelly, 52, found Wednesday soil Earth after 340 days moved into orbit aboard the station, twice as much as normal. The Soyuz capsule returning Scott Kelly and his Russian colleague Mikhail Korkienko on Earth should land at 10:27 in the steppes of Kazakhstan (5:27 in Paris).
Training Pilot, Scott Kelly was selected in 1996 by NASA with his brother, Mark, to study the effects on the human body to prolonged stays in space. For Mark and Scott have a particularity: they are monozygotic twins, that is to say, they have an extremely close genetic heritage. When Scott left for a year in space, in March 2015, Mark has therefore remained on Earth, while working for NASA: it serves as a “witness” of the evolution of the body of his brother living in orbit. This project, the first of its kind, should allow to better understand the effects of long stays in space in anticipation of a return trip to Mars, which would last three years.
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in October, Scott Kelly broke the American record for the longest continuous stay in space, which was that of the Spanish-American Michael López-Alegría in 2007, remained 215 days in a row. He also beat another American record for the largest number of cumulative days in space with 540 days, surpassing the previous record of 382 days of his compatriot Mike Fincke. These two national records, however, are not in the world: the first is less than 14 months continuously by Russian Valeri Polyakov in 1995, aboard the old Mir space station. The second is beaten by another Russian Gennady Padalka, who returned to Earth September 11, 2015 after 879 days in space.
The astronaut Scott Kelly, by 29 February, two days before returning to Earth, ensures that the secret to take a year in space is not to check calendar Photo credit:. NASA / REUTERS
an unusually long time that gave him the opportunity to share hundreds of messages and photos on social networks, also having a direct link with many Internet users – which his 600,000 followers on Twitter and 870,000 on Instagram – during regular question-and-answer forum on Reddit. His numerous pictures of the universe accompanied his personal prowess aboard the ISS. Without having offered an interpretation of David Bowie, as did the Canadian Chris Hadfield, Scott Kelly entertained earthlings giving see all sorts of activities within the resort. Back a few that have marked this year in space.
• Grow a flower (and even more)
The flowers were grown under LED lights in a laboratory on the ISS Copyright: NASA / BILL WHITE / AFP
many media outlets around the world have spoken: the first flower born in space was hatched in January. Scott Kelly was involved in the genesis of the first plants cultivated at the ISS and has since regularly posted their concerns and joys facing the petals in orbit.
When the plants showed signs of weakness, Scott Kelly has also joked about the need for its “Mark Watney inside”, ie the hero of the film The Martian that manages to grow potatoes from his stool
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• Play table tennis with a drop
The proof is simple: you can play table tennis in weightlessness. And among the fun experiences of Scott Kelly appears and performance with a drop of water as a ball. Both hydrophobic snowshoes used by astronaut make it possible to maintain the water at the state of large drop and bounce on the impervious surface.
• Juggling weightless
This is still a matter of gardening: welcome some fresh fruit arrived in a cargo ship from Earth, the astronaut gave a juggling demonstration in weightlessness with four oranges some lemons and apples.
• to administer a vaccine
Low risk of getting the flu on board the ISS since germs are not the way to space. Yet it is a vaccine against the virus responsible for it that has given Scott Kelly in September. The self-administered injection – “one is sometimes doctor orbital Walker, electrician or plumber”, said the astronaut about the skills needed in the ISS – was made almost simultaneously with that of his twin brother , on earth. The objective is indeed to NASA to study the differences in response between the two places of life.
• Taste a salad grown in weightlessness
Not content with cultivated flowers, Scott Kelly was among the first astronauts to taste “Nasa vegetables.” Lettuce thrust in the laboratories of the International Station, as LED lights, has been on the menu of an August 2015 astronaut meals. Half of the culture was frozen and sent to Earth for scientific analyzes. “A small bite for man, one giant leap for mankind”, had then tweeted Scott Kelly.
• Start a geography competition
Scott Kelly regularly involved surfers who followed him in the messages he was posting, inviting them to ask questions or give feedback. In April 2015, inspired by the stunning images taken from the International Space Station, he organized a play about geography. Each week, participants were asked to identify the visible place in the photo taken at over 300 kilometers away. The fastest to have recognized the place should be, once Scott Kelly returned to Earth, the snapshot in question signed by the hand of astronaut
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• turn into gorilla
the question remains: why? Far scientific initiatives aimed advanced science, Scott Kelly entertained his colleagues at the ISS and Internet users by posting a funny video just a few days. Dressed in a gorilla costume sent by his brother, he is filmed pretending to pursue another astronaut. “It needed a bit of humor,” said he wrote to accompany his video. He added: “Either big or go home (” go big or go home “, a familiar expression in English, note). I think I’ll do both, “
Monday, astronaut posted the last photographs taken from the station. Last five appearances of the sun on the horizon. “My last sunrise from space and then I will go!” He commented. Photo by photo, astronaut told to have become more sensitive to environmental issues during his stay in the space station, which is 16 times a day around the Earth at 28,000 km / h and at an altitude of 330 420 km. “The more I look at the Earth and the more I feel an ecologist soul,” has he said, indicating view areas “constantly shrouded in pollution.” Upon his return, he hopes “to do more to help preserve the planet.”
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