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Former NASA astronaut who spent 520 days in space – the second longest relay – and traveled more than 143 million kilometers in the cosmos, Capt Scott Kelly knows very little about taking the road less traveled.
The best thing about the space is that "it's a really hard thing to do," Kelly told more than 1,000 people Tuesday night, all crammed into the stands at the event's event center. University of Colorado Colorado Springs.
"That's what I want to talk about today," said Kelly. "It's about doing things difficult, not easy things."
Kelly took risks, such as becoming a test pilot for the Navy. Kelly admits that he had trouble at school and flying planes. But that did not stop him.
"From my experience, when I was able to put all these things in place, what I learned was that the sky is not the limit …" , did he declare. "There is a characteristic trait of many successful people: this risk-taking mentality … At certain times in your life, taking risks and seeing what you may be able to achieve is really an incredible trait that people have. "
Kelly lived onboard the International Space Station as a captain for 340 days on three expeditions. His time aboard the space station set the record for the cumulative number of days spent in space, the longest space mission of an American astronaut.
In this October 22, 2015 photo, Expedition 45 Commander Scott Kelly tries his spacesuit inside the US Quest International Space Station airlock. (NASA via AP)
A unique aspect of his career was that his identical twin brother, Mark Kelly, was also a NASA astronaut. The Kelly brothers are the only twin astronauts in the history of NASA.
In 2015, NASA studied them to compare the effects on human physiological, molecular and behavioral lenses. Scott spent a year at the ISS while Mark was working on ground control. Upon his return, his body had undergone several genetic modifications, especially at the chromosome level. The researchers found that the ends of Scott's chromosomes, called telomeres, were lengthening rather than shrinking as expected.
It was a high-risk mission, said Scott, but it did launch genetic tests on people while traveling in space, propelling humanity further into space studies. Scott said it was the most important thing he had done in his life.
"Of course, I have learned a lot about empathy and being a good human on this planet," he said.
"When we look at the planet Earth from space, we do not see political boundaries as we see on maps and globes of the Earth. You see a planet. You know that there are people there, and we are all in this thing together called humanity. "
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