Morning Mix

Touchdown! Scott Kelly returns to Earth with a fist-pump

and a cult following.
By Michael E. Miller March 2 at 7:19 AM

The space capsule descended gently through the stratosphere, like a falling feather. As it slipped through
the clouds, a strange land loomed below.
Just as the craft was about to touch the surface, six engines suddenly fired simultaneously, bringing the Soyuz
descent module to a cushioned stop.
Scott Kelly looked out the spherical window at the flat, barren terrain around him.
It wasnt Mars. It wasnt even the moon.
It was Kazakhstan.
But after 340 days in space, anywhere on planet Earth felt like home.
The air feels great out here, Kelly quipped, according to a NASA spokesman, as burly Kazakhs in heavy coats and
furry hats hoisted him from the scorched capsule. I have no idea why you guys are all bundled up.
Then he pumped his fist in celebration, zero-gravity-weakened muscles be damned.
Over the past 11 months, Kelly and Russian colleague Mikhail Kornienko have traveled 144 million miles through
space, orbited the globe 5,440 times and experienced 10,880 sunrises and sunsets. Kellys 340-day stint in space is
a record for an American astronaut, as is his total of 520 days spread over four missions.
Even more than his records, however, its Kellys attitude that has made him a crowd favorite back on the Big Blue
Marble. He has performed death-defying spacewalks, successfully grown (and eaten) lettuce in outer space and
chased a colleague around the International Space Station in a gorilla suit. He has chatted with everyone from
President Obama and Stephen Colbert to school kids.
Perhaps most memorable of all, he has snapped more than 1,000 stunning photos of the planet, sharing them with
his nearly 1 million Twitter followers with the hashtag #yearinspace.

And thats what it felt like for all of us.

Talking to someone whos in orbit. Its like Im an astronaut right now, gushed Colbert.
Kellys safe return Tuesday night is, therefore, a bit of a mixed blessing. We have regained an Earthling but lost a
colorful and quirky view of our planet from 250 miles up.

Scott Kelly

@StationCDRKelly

Follow

Huge thanks to all that made this beautiful launch possible.

#YearInSpace
12:06 AM - 28 Mar 2015
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5,340

His adventure began with a March 28, 2015, blastoff. But even before the rocket engines roared to life, Kelly was
already broadcasting his extraterrestrial experience as no American astronaut had ever done before.
On Feb. 15, 2015, he posted a photo of himself sitting in a nearly empty NASA office with a sign reading: BE BACK
IN 365 DAYS. The day before liftoff, he added: Just awoke from pre-launch nap. Last time in bed for a year.

Kelly made it feel like we were in the cockpit with him. He was our ambassador to outer space.
The experience continued aboard the ISS. In his first tweet from outer space, he thanked first lady Michelle Obama
for wishing him good luck.
Thank you. Made it! he wrote. Moving into crew quarters on @space_station to begin my #yearinspace.

Scott Kelly

@StationCDRKelly

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More #Africa #EarthArt hues. #YearInSpace

6:00 PM - 22 Feb 2016
1,745

4,034

More than a thousand tweets followed, almost everyone of them featuring a jarringly vivid photograph of the
planet. From the space station, sheets of icebergs appeared to be shattered glass,
deserts resembled beautiful tapestries and the Himalayas the tallest mountains on Earth looked like a weary

worlds wrinkles.

Scott Kelly

@StationCDRKelly

Follow

Will be missing these sands too, but looking forward to sandy

beaches up close. #EarthArt #Africa #YearInSpace
4:08 PM - 22 Feb 2016 Houston, TX, United States
1,654

5,523

Many of Kellys photos were unbelievable. Swirling red and green auroras seemed like scenes from Star Trek. The
Milky Way was a sparkling sea of stars surrounding Scott. And every 90 minutes, he was treated to the most
spectacular sunrise or sunset a human had ever seen.
From up high, he watched as immutable and eternal forces dictated events below. He witnessed a historic
snowstorm bury the East coast, and saw smoke rise from wildfires moving across a drought-stricken California.

Scott Kelly

@StationCDRKelly

Follow

Massive #snowstorm blanketing #EastCoast clearly visible from

@Space_Station! Stay safe! #blizzard2016 #YearInSpace
5:55 AM - 23 Jan 2016 Houston, TX, United States
17,216

20,327

But he could also see the effects of humankind.

Today we had this incredible pass over the Himalayas and to see all that pollution that is just riding up against the
mountains from the south is just really, really heartbreaking, he told CNNs Sanjay Gupta.

Scott Kelly

@StationCDRKelly

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Shocked & saddened by terrorist attacks on #Paris Standing with

#France from @space_station. Our thoughts are w you.
1:37 PM - 14 Nov 2015
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18,154

Shocked & saddened by terrorist attacks on #Paris, he tweeted as he soared above the stricken City of Light
hours after the Nov. 13, 2015, attacks. Standing with #France from @space_station. Our thoughts are [with] you.
Even as his photos captured hearts and minds on Earth, Kelly still had a day job to do in outer space. Much of it
involved helping NASA prepare to send astronauts to Mars in about 15 years.
In perhaps the most important experiment, Kelly served as a test subject for the long-term effects of living in outer
space, where zero gravity slowly saps muscle strength and bone density. Kelly took his own blood, performed
ultrasounds on himself and got fellow ISS crew members to examine his eyes to see how he was coping with his
yearlong space sojourn. The results will be compared to those from his twin, Mark, a retired astronaut back on
Earth.

Scotts the guinea pig in space and Im the guinea pig on Earth, Mark Kelly said on The Today Show. We have a
good sense of what it takes to fly in space for six months, but if one day we decide we want to go to Mars or some
other destination in the solar system, we know what the engineering is to do that, we dont know a lot about the
human body. So Scott spending a year in space and NASA studying both of us, because we are genetically the same,
thats going to give NASA a lot of information to reach out into the solar system.
Working a dozen hours a day, Kelly juggled other experiments.

Scott Kelly

@StationCDRKelly

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Our plants aren't looking too good. Would be a problem on Mars.

I'm going to have to channel my inner Mark Watney.
12:08 PM - 27 Dec 2015
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9,603

Its a remote place and its a tough environment because you can never leave, there is no running water, there is a

lot of work to do, youre always at work, he told The Today Show.
He grew lettuce in zero gravity and ultraviolet light, then recorded himself eating his bizarre crop, tweeting: It was
one small bite for man, one giant leap for #NASAVEGGIE and our #JourneytoMars.
His effort to grow zinnia flowers was not so successful, at least at first. The plants were overtaken by mold, forcing
Kelly to cut off parts and improvise techniques to restore them back to health.
Our plants arent looking too good. Would be a problem on Mars. Im going to have to channel my inner Mark
Watney, he tweeted in reference to the blockbuster movie The Martian. In the movie, Watney, an astronaut
played by Matt Damon, is stranded on Mars, where he devises an ingenious and disgusting way to grow potatoes.
When Kellys zinnias finally bloomed in mid January, the blossoms made headlines around the world.

Scott Kelly

@StationCDRKelly

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#SpaceFlower out in the sun for the first time! #YearInSpace

2:16 PM - 17 Jan 2016
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There are a lot of parallels with that movie to living in space for a long period of time, including growing things in
an extreme environment, Kelly told CNN.

In fact, Kellys year in space didnt just coincide with the movies release, it also coincided with a surge in American
interest in space exploration. Photos of Mars taken by the Curiosity rover helped reignite interest in visiting the
fourth planet from the sun. Meanwhile, the New Horizons probe snapped such amazing photos of Pluto that people
became nostalgic for the days when it was a planet.

Nothing humanized the cold, silent environs of outer space like Kelly and his social media posts, however. He
documented the strange space food he mixed into seemingly nauseating combinations. He slurped espresso from an
experimental machine on National Coffee Day. He wore a creepy mask on Halloween. And he chased a colleague
around the ISS in a gorilla suit just because.
He also exchanged hilarious tweets with famous admirers, none bigger than the commander in chief.

President Obama
@POTUS

Follow

Hey @StationCDRKelly, loving the photos. Do you ever look out

the window and just freak out?
3:25 PM - 1 Aug 2015
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11,474

Scott Kelly

@StationCDRKelly

Follow

I don't freak out about anything, Mr. President. Except getting a

Twitter question from you.
twitter.com/POTUS/status/6
3:28 PM - 1 Aug 2015
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22,441

In nearly every tweet, Instagram, interview or Facebook post, Kelly appeared to be having fun. He celebrated his
52nd birthday and the ISSs 15th anniversary in space. He did countless flips and donned virtual reality glasses. He
even joked with redditors during an AMA about playing pranks on his fellow astronauts.
By the time his 340 days drew near, Kelly appeared to be getting nostalgic.
Leaving this amazing facility is going to be tough because Ill probably never see it again, he told CNN. I dont
expect I will. Ive flown in space four times now. So its going to be hard in that respect. I certainly look forward to
going back to Earth. Ive been up here for a long time. Sometimes, I think about it and I feel like Ive lived my whole
life up here.
In his last couple of days, Kelly re-posted his favorite photos and took some final ones, too.
Likely my last pic of the #moon from space, he tweeted before going to bed for the final time in outer space. The
next morning, he snapped five photos of his last sunrise.

Scott Kelly

@StationCDRKelly

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My last #sunrise from space! 5 of 5. #YearInSpace

11:32 AM - 1 Mar 2016
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22,823

Thanks for following our #YearInSpace, he wrote in his last tweet from the ISS. The journey isnt over. Follow
me as I rediscover #Earth! See you down below!
Then he, Kornienko and another, more recently arrived Russian cosmonaut named Sergey Volkov climbed into the
Soyuz descent module and began the journey back to Earth.
Video cameras aboard the space station captured the capsule slowly drifting away into the inky darkness.

One Year Crew Departs Space Station

After about three hours, the capsule began to jettison unneeded parts. First, orbital and propulsion modules.
Then, the spacecrafts two solar sail-like arrays.
The Soyuz plunged faster and faster towards Earth. By the time it reached the atmosphere, it had reached a speed
of 17,500 miles per hour. At around 400,000 feet, the thickening atmosphere caused the Soyuzs outer heat shield
to glow red hot.

Fifteen minutes before landing, the first of a series of increasingly large parachutes popped out to slow its fall.
A small crowd had gathered in the bleak emptiness of Kazakhstans southern steppe to greet the returning
astronauts. They watched the Soyuz glide down towards the ground.

Then, in a last-second burst of rocket fuel, the modules landing engines flared and the Soyuz came to Earth with a
thud.
Touchdown! tweeted NASA.
They did it, said NASA spokesman Rob Navias. They are home after a year in space and they stuck the landing.
Kelly squinted in the morning light as he climbed out of the cramped capsule. He had flown over Kazakhstan like
everywhere else on Earth 5,440 times at an altitude of 250 miles. Now a ground crew swaddled him like a child in
a giant blanket and set him on the snow-dusted ground.

Mark Kelly

@ShuttleCDRKelly

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My brother @StationCDRKelly is back home on our planet! Talk

about aliens. He's been off the planet for a year.
pic.twitter.com/OzkesF0f7H
12:24 AM - 2 Mar 2016
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His twin brother welcomed him back to planet Earth by playfully calling him an alien on Twitter. His sister-inlaw, former Arizona congresswoman Gabriel Giffords added that she was excited to welcome him back in
Houston, where Kellys girlfriend and two daughters were waiting for him.
A battery of tests also awaits the record-breaking returned astronaut.

In an interview last week, however, Kelly revealed he has another, more personal priority.
Im going to go home and jump in my pool, he said.
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Michael E. Miller is a foreign affairs reporter for The Washington Post. He writes for the
Morning Mix news blog. Tweet him: @MikeMillerDC