CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is already bracing for an unprecedented one-year mission aboard the International Space Station. He figures it will be as grueling as climbing Mount Everest. <\/p>\n
\"It's fun when you're done with it, not while you're doing it,\" Kelly said Wednesday, barely a week after being named to the marathon flight along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. <\/p>\n
The mission, set to begin in 2015, is intended as a medical test bed for even longer Mars expeditions in the decades ahead. <\/p>\n
Space station life can be routine, Kelly noted during a news conference. <\/p>\n
\"In the morning, you wake up, you're at work. When you go to sleep, you're also at work. So imagine being in your office for a whole year and you never get to leave,\" he said. \"That is a challenge and it presents its own set of issues, but I think I'm up for it.\" <\/p>\n
As for being off the planet for that long, Kelly said he already knows how he reacts to horrific news while in orbit. <\/p>\n
During his five-month space station mission that spanned 2010 and 2011, his sister-in-law, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in an assassination attempt in Tucson, Ariz. She is married to Kelly's identical twin, Mark, who retired as a NASA astronaut last year. <\/p>\n
\"Certainly, nothing good comes out of anything like this. But as a result, I do know how I respond to something along those lines,\" he said. <\/p>\n
Kelly, 48, a Navy captain, has two daughters from a previous marriage, ages 9 and 18. The youngest, Charlotte, screamed \"awesome\" when she learned her father was selected for the one-year mission. <\/p>\n
Brother Mark was all for it. So was Giffords. When Mark told his wife, she said, \"a year in space, that's great,\" Scott Kelly said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. <\/p>\n
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Link: CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is already bracing for an unprecedented one-year mission aboard the International Space Station Continue reading
\nAstronaut braces for unprecedented year in space<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"