This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Captain Scott Kelly talks about his year in space, effects on his ocular health
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
LOS ANGELES — Captain Scott Kelly discussed the challenges he faced to successfully reach his goal of becoming an astronaut and the effects being in space for a year had on his physical health.
Kelly spent 340 consecutive days in the International Space Station with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko in a mission to collect scientific data and to better understand how the human body reacts and adapts to long-term space travel.
Captain Scott Kelly
“The best part about coming back? I had just finished the hardest thing I will ever do in my entire life, hopefully the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do. That’s what made it so rewarding, doing the hard things and then being able to share it with your family and friends,” Kelly said at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery meeting during the Science, Medicine and Technology lecture.
NASA compared Kelly’s physical and genetic health to his identical twin brother, Mark Kelly, upon his return to evaluate the effect of space travel on the human body. Radiation is always a concern, as 1 day spent in space is the equivalent of 20 chest X-rays, he said.
Space also had a negative effect on the physiology of his eyes, he said.
“I used different data collection devices to try to understand this increase of pressure in our heads when we’re in space because of the gravity shift and how that has a negative effect on the structure of our eyes. When I got back, I had swelling of the optic nerve and my choroidal folds,” Kelly said. – by Robert Linnehan
Reference:
Kelly S. The sky is not the limit: Lessons from a year in space. Presented at: American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery annual meeting; May 5-9, 2017; Los Angeles.