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a big part of the research mission on

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the international space station is

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designed to find out how human beings

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respond to being in a weightless

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environment for an extended period of

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time

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because that's what it will take to

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complete the planned missions of

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exploration beyond low earth orbit in

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fact those trips are going to take more

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than the six months that crew members

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have been spending on the station so far

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so next year two crew members are

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launching on the first year-long mission

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of this program veteran station crew

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members mikhail kornienko the frost

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cosmos and scott kelly of nasa have been

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preparing for this flight for a year

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already

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and they have another year to go before

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they launch in late march of

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2015. i got to spend a few minutes with

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scott kelly yesterday and i asked him

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what's different about getting ready for

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a year in space as compared to six

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well uh from a training perspective the

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a lot of it's very similar to what i

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went through last time

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with some exceptions obviously the fact

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that i'll be up there with twice as many

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people some of the training you do you

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have to do with your

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fellow crew members especially things

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like the emergency training

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i'll uh have to do

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not twice as much but

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clearly with twice as many people so

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there's that there's training with uh

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two different soyuz commanders that'll

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be that'll add uh complexity uh to the

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training and and add content

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um most of the station systems stuff is

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uh

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is not gonna change i mean the station

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is in much the same configuration as it

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was when i was there last

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but um being there for twice as long

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i'll be doing twice as much science so

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from a science training perspective i

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should

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you know logically yeah thinking about

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this you should i should wind up with

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twice as much

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as you

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look ahead to that are there things that

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you think you can do differently now

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knowing you're going to be there for 12

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months instead of six

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you know i think the fact that i've

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flown a long duration flight before

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gives me a little bit of perspective on

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what it's like and um you know

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understanding that a year is a long time

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um you know there are things i will

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do a little bit differently with regards

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to pacing myself and how

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um

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you know you you wouldn't think this

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would be true but you do have to kind of

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stay entertained um over that kind of

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period no matter how exciting something

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is and no matter how beautiful the earth

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is

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you know when you're doing it for a year

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there is still the the factor of trying

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to keep yourself engaged and interested

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so i understand that and then also you

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know i i know what i want to bring this

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time that uh you know i didn't have last

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time thank you for getting things the

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first time yeah just things to make your

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life more comfortable and interesting

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while on board the space station the

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whole point of doing this is to learn

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more about how the human body responds

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to being in that environment

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what sorts of things are are on the

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agenda for you and and miguel as you

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look ahead to being there for 12 months

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from from that perspective about you

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know extending the uh you know the

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envelope of uh expanding the envelope of

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how long people have been in space and

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being able to do that maybe to

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eventually

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go to the go to mars someday we

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eventually will we just you know we're

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not sure when that will be

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we hope it'll be sooner rather than

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later but uh

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in those types of experiments we have um

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you know certain phenomena that that

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result from uh long-duration space like

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bone loss muscle loss

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um

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radiation uh

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issues um and uh currently this new um

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risk we have is the effect on our vision

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so

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a lot of the science um

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that is devoted to

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to misha and i as crew members are along

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those kind of lines also you know your

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physical performance your ability

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to function once you get back on earth

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after uh such a long duration

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in space

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one of the unique things pretty neat

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things actually about this is that you

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and your brother mark volunteered to to

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do some

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research to take advantage of the fact

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that you have you are twins one in space

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uh one not uh tell me about where that

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idea came from and what kinds of things

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you're going to be looking at yeah it's

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been somewhat misquoted that this was my

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idea and it and it was not um

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when i got assigned to this flight i was

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asked to

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i was being given a briefing to answer

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uh some of the science questions that

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might come up in a press conference so

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some of the the scientists were there um

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the the program leads for science and i

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asked the question hey if someone just

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asks

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the kind of a generic question will

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there be anything any comparative

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studies between you and your brother

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and

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the reason i ask that question is

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obviously you know my brother's a former

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astronaut and you know they've collected

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uh nasa being they have collected data

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on us since you know 1995 when they

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interviewed you know a few weeks later

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the uh the program uh science lead

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uh

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john charles came back to me and said

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you know we

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took your question and we were kind of

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um discussing it and it actually

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looks like you know this might be

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something that the science community is

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interested in you know especially in the

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area of uh genetics

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and even though

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you know we are you know what's

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considered an n of one we are one sample

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group and you know statistically that is

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not where

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it's not enough to draw a conclusion

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yeah generally yeah you can draw very

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broad conclusions but you're not going

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to draw specific conclusions

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based on a

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one

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sample

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but there is a lot of interest in what

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kind of general conclusions we can come

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to based on this comparative study

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between my brother and i but you know

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most of it is in this area of genetic

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research

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when you agreed to to this mission

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you're getting ready to leave the planet

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for a full year you actually can be gone

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from home for for longer than that a lot

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of people would say i couldn't possibly

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do that

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what kind of things ran through your

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mind as you were deciding whether or not

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to to go ahead and accept this

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assignment you know i i had a desire to

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fly in space again i just hadn't gotten

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that out of my system yet with uh three

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flights um

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you know at first you think well a year

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is a long time um

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but

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i also felt like well maybe flying

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another six-month flight would be doing

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uh

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a mission very similar to what i did

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last time so even though you know the

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year on one hand

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might not be very appealing because a

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year is a long time um

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you know on the other hand it was

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something different and

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and you know more challenging than

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a six-month flight that

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after thinking about it for a while it

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the whole idea of it became very

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appealing so you know at this point i'm

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less than a year out and i'm i'm pretty

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excited and feel fortunate to have this

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opportunity i mean there are many people

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in the astronaut office that would have

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jumped at this opportunity i was just

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you know lucky timing right place right

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time to

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we we are just inside one year until you

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launch and you've decided to to share

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that year with the twitterverse you one

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tweet a day while you're uh while you're

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preparing for this flight uh what what

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was it that compelled you to do that

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well i was thinking that it would be

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interesting um

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when i'm in space i'm not gonna go

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overboard certainly but because you know

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my priority is

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you know safety of flight safety of the

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hardware you know completing the mission

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objectives

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you know tweeting is somewhere

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way way down on the list however you

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know i think engaging the public is very

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important it's their space program

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um you know they have a right to this

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information and and i feel like we have

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an obligation to provide it

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um so i felt like it'd be interesting to

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do that in space you know one

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140 character message a day hey this is

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what i'm doing this is how i'm feeling

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be interesting to compare you know day

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one to day 365

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from you know a personal perspective

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yeah but so i kind of backed that up a

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little bit and i said well let let me

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see

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if i can just kind of get into the habit

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of doing this and i'll do it you know

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counting down to the launch and then

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count up over a year

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i'm not sure if i'm we would be

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successful doing it every day but i'm

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gonna i'm gonna give it a try um and see

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how it goes

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well we're all gonna keep an eye on that

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and and and your preparations as you and

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and misha get ready for your mission uh

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thanks very much for for talking about

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it with us nasa astronaut scott kelly is