![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/moon-landing-750w.jpg\")
<\/a>Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong working at an equipment storage area on the lunar module. This is one of the few photos that show Armstrong during the moonwalk. Photo: NASA<\/p><\/div>\n
Who Is Scott Kelly?<\/h4>\n
Scott Kelly, 54, born in Orange, New Jersey, did four spaceflights, commanded the International Space Station (ISS) on three expeditions, and was a member of the yearlong mission to the ISS. In October 2015, he set the record for the total accumulated days spent in space and for the single longest space mission by an American astronaut. That\u2019s pretty amazing when you think back to Armstrong\u2019s time in space: eight days, 14 hours, 12 minutes, and 30 seconds.<\/p>\n
[awesome-gallery id=8055]
(LEFT) Mark (left) and Scott Kelly (right) in their yard on Mitchell Street, West Orange, New Jersey; (RIGHT) Scott Kelly and his wife, Amiko Kauderer <\/p><\/p>\n
He\u2019s been married twice. First to Leslie Yandell, with whom he has two daughters, and most recently, to Amiko Kauderer, a former public affairs officer for NASA.<\/p>\n
Kelly\u2019s twin brother, Mark, also became an astronaut and a U.S. Navy captain, bestselling author, and an experienced naval aviator and test pilot who flew combat missions during the Gulf War. Mark Kelly is married to Gabrielle \u201cGabby\u201d Giffords who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives until she was forced to resign after a near fatal assassination attempt.<\/p>\n
What makes this book a special read, beyond the spaceflight minutia, is the chance to see how life events played out to shape a young man and help him find his passion. The chapters flip between the space station experience to growing up and anecdotes of his personal life, which makes it captivating to follow.<\/p>\n
A Born Risk Taker<\/h4>\n
A risk taker from the start, Kelly along with Mark likely gave their parents heart failure with their antics from jumping off and crawling under things, capsizing, and \u201ctempting death.\u201d He describes climbing up drainpipes with his brother when they were six and waving to his parents from two or three stories up:<\/p>\n
I found it bewildering that some people my age could just sit still, breathing and blinking, for entire school days \u2026 What could they learn in a classroom that could even approach the feeling of flying down a hill out of control on a bike?<\/p>\n
He says he wasn\u2019t a great high school student. But he did manage to find something he was good at that adults approved of: He worked as an emergency medical technician (EMT). He once \u201cdelivered a baby in a public housing project, the mother in a rancid bed with old unwashed sheets, a single naked light bulb swinging overhead\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
He confessed, \u201cThe heart-pounding feeling of walking into a potentially dangerous situation and having to depend on my wits was intoxicating.\u201d<\/p>\n
College was no different for this dreamer. He\u2019d thought he wanted to become a doctor but still couldn\u2019t apply himself.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Endurance-paperback-jacket.-650h.jpg\")
<\/a>A Single Book Changed Kelly\u2019s Life<\/h4>\nWhile in college, a book in the campus store caught his eye: The Right Stuff<\/em>\u00a0 by Tom Wolfe.<\/p>\nNever a reader, other than Cliffs Notes to help him pass his tests, this book grabbed him. He read it in one day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis wasn\u2019t just an exciting adventure story,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was something more like a life plan \u2026 Here, in a book, I found something I\u2019d thought I would never find: an ambition.\u201d For him, this was the beginning of his life\u2026<\/p>\n
During his year at the space station, he often thought about how The Right Stuff<\/em> had influenced his life. \u201cI decided to call Tom Wolfe; I thought he might enjoy getting a call from space \u2026 I asked him how he writes his books, how I might start to think about putting my experiences into words. \u2018Begin at the beginning,\u2019 he said\u2026\u201d<\/p>\nAnd that\u2019s what Kelly has done in his book.<\/p>\n
[awesome-gallery id=8047]<\/p>\n
A Year in Space<\/h4>\n
The purpose of Kelly\u2019s yearlong mission, along with Russian cosmonauts Mikhail \u201cMisha\u201d Kornienko and Sergey Volkov, was to study the long-term effects of spending an extensive period of time in space. He recounts how a previous mission of 159 days affected his body from bone loss, muscle atrophy, blood redistribution, and effects on his vision. He is also participating in a twin study with his brother.<\/p>\n
For anyone wondering what it\u2019s like to travel into space, this is the ultimate read. Space fans will love the detail from his descriptions of liftoff, \u201cthe slam of acceleration;\u201d the choice of takeoff music\u2014he thought \u201cKilling Me Softly\u201d wouldn\u2019t be a good choice; the crew quarters, \u201csleeping while floating isn\u2019t easy;\u201d the food\u2014tortillas for their \u201clack of crumbs.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/earth-from-space-station-700.jpg\")
<\/a>Missing Earth<\/h4>\nWhat did he miss most about Earth? He says he missed cooking, chopping vegetables, smells of fruit, meeting new people, sounds of people talking, sitting on his couch or a bar stool, drinking from a glass, running water, and being able to help back home.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/scott-kelly-living-quarters.-Photo-NASA.700wjpg.jpg\")
<\/a><\/h4>\nKelly’s personal living quarters in space. Scott tweeted this image out with the comment: “My #bedroom aboard #ISS. All the comforts of #home. Well, most of them. #YearInSpace”.” Photo: NASA<\/p><\/p>\n
Missing the Space Station<\/h4>\n
What will he miss about the space station?<\/p>\n
The friendships that he built with the crew, the view of Earth, and the challenge of \u201csurviving by my wits\u201d and \u201clife threatening challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelly said:<\/p>\n
This is why we volunteered for this mission, after all: to discover how the human body is affected by long-term spaceflight \u2026 Our space agencies won\u2019t be able to push out farther into space, to a destination like Mars, until we can learn more about how to strengthen the weakest links in the chain that makes spaceflight possible: the human body and mind. People often ask me why I volunteered for this mission, knowing the risks\u2014the risk of the launch, the risk inherent in spacewalks, the risk of returning to Earth, the risk I would be exposed to every moment I lived in a metal container orbiting the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour. I have a few answers I give to this question, but none of them feels fully satisfying to me. None of them quite answers it.<\/p>\n
For Kelly, his hope is that the knowledge gained from his year in space will play some part in helping man reach Mars. His inspirational memoir will undoubtedly influence future astronauts and supporters of the space program for years to come.<\/p>\n
Endurance: My Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly. <\/em>@2018, published by Vintage Books. A Division of Penguin Random House. Paperback.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Profile on Scott Kelly who spent a year in space<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2018","category-fall-2018-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7951"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8365,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7951\/revisions\/8365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Never a reader, other than Cliffs Notes to help him pass his tests, this book grabbed him. He read it in one day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis wasn\u2019t just an exciting adventure story,\u201d he said. \u201cThis was something more like a life plan \u2026 Here, in a book, I found something I\u2019d thought I would never find: an ambition.\u201d For him, this was the beginning of his life\u2026<\/p>\n
During his year at the space station, he often thought about how The Right Stuff<\/em> had influenced his life. \u201cI decided to call Tom Wolfe; I thought he might enjoy getting a call from space \u2026 I asked him how he writes his books, how I might start to think about putting my experiences into words. \u2018Begin at the beginning,\u2019 he said\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n And that\u2019s what Kelly has done in his book.<\/p>\n [awesome-gallery id=8047]<\/p>\n The purpose of Kelly\u2019s yearlong mission, along with Russian cosmonauts Mikhail \u201cMisha\u201d Kornienko and Sergey Volkov, was to study the long-term effects of spending an extensive period of time in space. He recounts how a previous mission of 159 days affected his body from bone loss, muscle atrophy, blood redistribution, and effects on his vision. He is also participating in a twin study with his brother.<\/p>\n For anyone wondering what it\u2019s like to travel into space, this is the ultimate read. Space fans will love the detail from his descriptions of liftoff, \u201cthe slam of acceleration;\u201d the choice of takeoff music\u2014he thought \u201cKilling Me Softly\u201d wouldn\u2019t be a good choice; the crew quarters, \u201csleeping while floating isn\u2019t easy;\u201d the food\u2014tortillas for their \u201clack of crumbs.\u201d<\/p>\n What did he miss most about Earth? He says he missed cooking, chopping vegetables, smells of fruit, meeting new people, sounds of people talking, sitting on his couch or a bar stool, drinking from a glass, running water, and being able to help back home.<\/p>\n Kelly’s personal living quarters in space. Scott tweeted this image out with the comment: “My #bedroom aboard #ISS. All the comforts of #home. Well, most of them. #YearInSpace”.” Photo: NASA<\/p><\/p>\n What will he miss about the space station?<\/p>\n The friendships that he built with the crew, the view of Earth, and the challenge of \u201csurviving by my wits\u201d and \u201clife threatening challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n Kelly said:<\/p>\n This is why we volunteered for this mission, after all: to discover how the human body is affected by long-term spaceflight \u2026 Our space agencies won\u2019t be able to push out farther into space, to a destination like Mars, until we can learn more about how to strengthen the weakest links in the chain that makes spaceflight possible: the human body and mind. People often ask me why I volunteered for this mission, knowing the risks\u2014the risk of the launch, the risk inherent in spacewalks, the risk of returning to Earth, the risk I would be exposed to every moment I lived in a metal container orbiting the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour. I have a few answers I give to this question, but none of them feels fully satisfying to me. None of them quite answers it.<\/p>\n For Kelly, his hope is that the knowledge gained from his year in space will play some part in helping man reach Mars. His inspirational memoir will undoubtedly influence future astronauts and supporters of the space program for years to come.<\/p>\n Profile on Scott Kelly who spent a year in space<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2018","category-fall-2018-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7951"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8365,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7951\/revisions\/8365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A Year in Space<\/h4>\n
<\/a>Missing Earth<\/h4>\n<\/a><\/h4>\nMissing the Space Station<\/h4>\n
Endurance: My Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly. <\/em>@2018, published by Vintage Books. A Division of Penguin Random House. Paperback.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"