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Two Astronauts Return To Earth After Record 340 Days In ISS (technews.mobi)

Posted by BeauHD on from the study-abroad dept.

An anonymous reader writes: U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian astronaut Mikhail Kornienko returned to Earth Wednesday after spending a year aboard the ISS, conducting experiments for future missions to Mars. Mikhail Kornienko, 55, and Scott Kelly, 52, completed the longest uninterrupted period aboard the ISS since the station was deployed in 2000. Kelly, who has made four trips to the ISS, also breaks the record for cumulative time in space by an American, with 540 days. Kelly and Kornienko performed this mission to study the biological and psychological effects of long stays in space in order to prepare for future missions to Mars in 2030 or sooner. During their stay at the station, both were frequently subjected to medical examination and a battery of tests to study the long-term effects of micro-gravity on the human body.

3 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Who gives a shit? by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Informative

    At this point these space stunts are the equivalent of flagpole sitting.

    What was not in TFS and IS important is that Scott's identical twin brother (a retired astronaut himself) remained on Earth all this time. So NASA is doing comparative studies between the two of them. This was no stunt but instead a carefully crafted experiment.

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  2. Re:Who gives a shit? by OzPeter · · Score: 2, Informative

    Was the brother confined within a control space, so everything aside from microgravity and speed were the same?

    Instead of being a pedantic douchenozzle why don't you go and read up on the NASA Twins Study itself and then come back here and report on everything that NASA did wrong?

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  3. Lets not forget the Russians by vikrant · · Score: 4, Informative

    Four cosmonauts have stayed for 365 days or longer continuously in space during the 1990's. The record for the longest space flight being held by Valeri Polyakov who stayed on the Mir space station from 1994 - 1995. Russian achievements are often obscured because of the uncomparable public involvment by NASA.
    See: Ten Longest Space Flights

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