After more than five months aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy is getting used to life with gravity again. <\/p>\n
\"I feel really good,\" Cassidy said Thursday (Sept. 19). \"The exercise program that we have up there does a fantastic job because I was able to walk pretty much hours after getting out of the Soyuz and I started driving again today. I feel like I've got my balance.\" <\/p>\n
Cassidy and two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth on Sept. 11 when Russian Soyuz spacecraft landed safelyon the flat steppes of Kazakhstan in Central Asia on the morning of Sept. 11. Now back in the United States, Cassidy caught up with SPACE.com over Skype from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. He reflected on his stay, a harrowing spacewalk with Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano and the prospect of longer space missions. [Watch Chris Cassidy's Interview with SPACE.com (Video)] <\/p>\n
Would You Sign Up for a Years-Long Space Mission? <\/p>\n
NASA regularly monitors the health of its astronauts when they return from orbit, but Cassidy has been participating in some extra tests to serve as a baseline for hisfellow astronaut Scott Kelly, who is set to launch on a one-year mission to the space station twice as long as the average trip. Kelly's 2015 voyage will help NASA study how the human body might handle even longer space missions, such as trips to an asteroid or Mars. <\/p>\n
\"A year is a long time,\" Cassidy said. \"I talked to Scott just the other day about it. And I thought to myself, too, as I was leaving the space station last week, what would it be like if I was only halfway done right now? How would I feel?\" <\/p>\n
Cassidy thinks that psychologically, the long mission would be just fine. <\/p>\n
\"Mentally, you prepare yourself for what you think the duration is going to be, and he knows it's going to be a year going into it, so he'll be fine from that respect,\" said Cassidy, a 43-year-old former U.S. Navy SEAL. <\/p>\n
But fatigue can settle in for the crew sustaining the $100-billionInternational Space Station, where there are hundreds of science experiments and maintenance tasks to complete. There are constant worries about the schedule and what to do if an alarm sounds, Cassidy said, and though the astronauts do get weekends, they spend a good chunk of their Saturdays cleaning. <\/p>\n
\"My personal opinion is that you'd want to have in second half of the year ... a three or four day weekend every month,\" Cassidy said of Kelly's year-long trip. \"I think that would go a long ways to keeping him fresh.\" <\/p>\n
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Go here to read the rest: After more than five months aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy is getting used to life with gravity again. \"I feel really good,\" Cassidy said Thursday (Sept Continue reading
\nHow Space Station Astronaut Chris Cassidy Is Readapting to Earth Life (Video)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"