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so scott kelly just under two weeks away

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from returning from his historic

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year-long stay on board the

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international space station and a lot of

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people are going to be down there on the

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ground to help out once he comes home

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and i'm joined now by one of those dr

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stephen gilmour who's the lead flight

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surgeon and has been for scott for his

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entire mission so dr gilmore first off

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thanks so much for joining me today it's

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always great to meet the people kind of

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behind the scenes making this all happen

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and if i can i want to jump right into

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it so the landing and kazakhstans are

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really dynamic or really interesting

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tell me a little bit about what that

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process is like on your end as a flight

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surgeon

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well thank you very much and it's a

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pleasure to be here

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i would describe it as the definition of

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a whirlwind tour

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we

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will be leaving about seven days before

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landing to go over to moscow and we'll

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meet with some of the

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support team there and coordinate with

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our russian colleagues who

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provide all the assets for landing and

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about three days before landing we

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travel with them to kazakhstan

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and

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get in the posture for deployment

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and uh

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on the day of the landing we split up

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into two teams there's a team that goes

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and supports um a possible landing at a

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ballistic site and then there's a larger

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team

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that goes to the primary landing site

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and i'll be in the team at the primary

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landing site and

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on the day of the landing we deploy into

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groups on uh the helicopters that are

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provided and

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fly out to the landing site and

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are there to receive the crew okay and

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so as a flight surgeon so there's a lot

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of folks there's the search and recovery

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folks there's a lot of people from you

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know the russian forces the nasa team as

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a flight surgeon what is your role once

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you're down on the ground and we have

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you know scott out of the capsule

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so we we do several things but our main

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responsibility there is to

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be looking out for the health and

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well-being of the crew member uh and so

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immediately after landing

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we're there with the team and

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we are typically there for the

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extraction of the crew members from the

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vehicle

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and from that point forward we're

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monitoring

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them checking out their vital signs

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they typically have a brief um

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period in chairs out in front of the

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question and answer stuff

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with some of the folks that are there

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and then after that

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they set up a medical tent and we take

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the crew members into there um again

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we're

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just making sure they're doing well

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get them changed out of their space

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suits

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and in that tent also we would we plan

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to perform some

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medical and science testing um

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after after that's done we

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everyone gets back on the helicopters

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and returns to um the airport in

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karaganda for return to

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in our case we'll be coming back

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directly to the states and the russian

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crew members go back to them okay now so

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scott kelly has been in space for almost

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12 months now are you going to be doing

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anything special for his return as

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opposed to what you normally do for a

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say six month crew member

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so in in general it's a similar template

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um i think

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i'm kind of we'll compare it to his last

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stay on orbit which was um which i also

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had the fortunate good fortune to work

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with

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him on that

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um

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but so the the the science and the in

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the research questions um are really um

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paramount on this one year mission and

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in contrast to the last last one

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he'll be doing some

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uh blood collection like not immediately

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before he gets on the the

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vehicle to come home but within a few

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hours of that

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so we'll be we'll be getting

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a lot of data on the crew member it's

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it's a little bit uh difficult to

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describe but um and when you're looking

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at a crew member um basically what

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there's there's a there's a time

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pressure because although you can't see

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it in most cases directly you what we're

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trying to capture is a snapshot of the

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crew's health their capability and

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functioning

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and that is a constantly changing um

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uh picture um even though it's tough to

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view just from a person looking at them

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but so we do that in a variety of ways

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whether it's

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blood draws or sample collections or um

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some of the um functional testing that

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we do

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that's what the main goal is so i wanted

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to get into that real quick so you guys

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are going to be doing something with

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functional testing you know really soon

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after and i think we've uh talked to

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julie robinson a little bit about that

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can you expand upon that like what are

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some of the the tasks that scott is

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going to be uh asked to do you know that

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and why are we doing these kind of tests

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that's a great question um

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there's a there's a test that we ideally

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perform at the landing site in the tent

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and it's called the functional field

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test and the goal of this test is

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obtain an assessment of what crews can

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perform um so and and the analogs for

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this are we want to know

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um

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down can they open hatches could they do

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a space walk uh or

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in the case that we're going to

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somewhere like mars can we can they go

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out right away and do tr um

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spacewalks on the surface of that planet

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and so

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um

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as i mentioned we'll we'll do a quick

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medical check on the crew member um

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we'll get them out of their spacesuits

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and then

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they're instrumented with some really

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interesting technology

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a lot of motion sensors

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on all their

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like on their arms and legs and on their

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chest

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and that allows us to do

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with videography we can um sort of

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measure their ability to to move and see

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how that's different relative to when

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they left

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the other things that we're also

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monitoring closely are

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their heart rate response

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as we're having them do activities and

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it's

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a mini obstacle course to see how they

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how their bodies tolerate navigating

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those things maybe not so hard when

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you've been down here the whole time but

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when you've been coming back from

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microgravity it can be a little bit

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difficult absolutely um

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and and again this is part of that

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obtaining snapshots of the crew members

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ability we know we've done it multiple

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times before the flight in this case and

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um we'll do it after the flight and it

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it's

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perhaps you'll have at one point an

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opportunity to maybe show

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the audience what the test is but it's a

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real practical test and um i think it

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gets real valuable information okay and

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i mean just one final thing so once he's

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back in the country you know the rehab

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begins what's what's kind of the rehab

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process look for a crew member and is

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there anything is there going to be

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anything different about his again as

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opposed to what we normally do for folks

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so the the typical process is so we'll

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take a pretty much a 20-hour flight back

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to houston

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after landing and uh we have this period

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where we called the the reconditioning

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period and um

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typically for a six-month mission it

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lasts about 45 days and there's daily um

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workouts and exercises to make sure that

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we return the crew member back to

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the same kind of functioning that they

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had before

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before the mission started

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and so with respect to the one year

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mission

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usually what we see is crew member crew

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members as i described before they're in

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a state of change and um their abilities

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are improving all the time from from

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landing point forward

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um i anticipate that um even though he's

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been in year in space for a year that

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we'll still probably need that full 45

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days okay um

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and we do have the latitude in the case

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that a little bit more time is required

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for the rehab process um we can extend

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that if necessary

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but i anticipate that it'll look

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in many ways similar to the six-month

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experiences that most of the station

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astronauts have all right well again dr

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stephen gilmour the lead flight surgeon

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for scott kelly's one year mission

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getting ready to come home in just under

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two weeks

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thanks so much for joining me on console

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good luck over there in kazakhstan pack

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a jacket i know it's gonna be cold but