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Kelly and Russian
cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned to Earth last week after
nearly a year on the International Space Station, the longest
U.S. space mission on record, intended to pave the way for human
travel to Mars.
NASA said that after retiring, Kelly, 52, will still work on
ongoing research related to his time in space.
His identical twin brother Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut,
is participating in a series of related studies looking for
genetic changes caused by high radiation and the weightless
environment of space.
"This year-in-space mission was a profound challenge for all
involved, and it gave me a unique perspective and a lot of time
to reflect on what my next step should be on our continued
journey to help further our capabilities in space and on Earth,”
Scott Kelly said in the statement from NASA.
He flew in space four times beginning with space shuttle
Discovery’s trip to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on a servicing
mission in 1999, NASA said.
Kelly, who previously spent 159 days on the station, said the
hardest part of being in space for so long was being separated
from his friends and family.
Kelly’s 340-day mission eclipsed the previous U.S. record-long
spaceflight of 215 days, set by former astronaut Michael
Lopez-Alegria aboard the space station in 2007.
"Records are meant to be broken," Kelly said.
"I am looking forward to when these records in space are
surpassed."
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Chris
Reese and Tom Brown)
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