Scott Kelly Quotes

The microgravity or the very, very low amount of gravity that we have up in space forces some changes in different processes. It forces changes in us as human beings.

Adaption of the human body in space is not yet mastered. As soon as you hit space, you feel your body is going through a period of mutation. There's no blood in your head; you have a hard time swallowing. We're not born to naturally be in space.

The reason space missions need artificial gravity is clear: humans simply did not evolve to live in zero gravity.

The one thing we can't really train for is weightlessness, real weightlessness. It's a ton of fun. It's pure Newtonian physics. You push in one direction, you go in the opposite direction with an equal force.

When you talk to crews that went to Mir or have gone up to International Space Station, they say that you go through different phases of adaptation or getting used to the space environment.

In space, you need to exercise your heart since it's not pumping blood around at the same rate.

Adjusting to space is easier than adjusting to Earth for me.

One thing we've learned about space is that the human body starts to fall apart after relatively short exposures to microgravity.

While you're in space, you grow in height! Without the constant force of gravity on your spine, it stretches out, and you're actually taller when you land. It doesn't last long though.

Your arms don't hang by your side in space like they do on Earth because there is no gravity. It feels awkward to have them floating in front of me.

Zero G and I feel fine.

Basically, most good science in space flight has to do with the behavior of the human body in space. That is where we are lacking info, and where info can only be obtained by flying in space.

A lot of scientists on Earth think of things that they could do in zero g. Things like the way metals cure, for example, and the way fluids react in space can tell us a lot about some of the unknowns we have on Earth.

Space is not a good place to mix foods because as soon as you take something out of the package, it becomes a flying object.

We were only on orbit a little over two days, so we had no adverse effects from being weightless.

We wanted to be in great shape, we wanted to be able to cope with zero gravity, we wanted to be able to cope with accelerations and decelerations and so on. So all of us trained so that we were probably in the best physical condition we had ever been in up until that point.

The ability of the humans to not only function in space but be very functional when they arrive at their destination, those are the kinds of things we're learning from the science. Fuel transfer technologies and all the things we can learn about the space environment are all valuable to us for pressing on out.

When we first get to space, we feel sick. Your body is really confused. You're dizzy. Your lunch is floating around in your belly because you're floating. What you see doesn't match what you feel, and you want to throw up.

Life as an astronaut in space is a very interesting one. There are things we all take for granted here on earth, like gravity, that can make things a bit challenging. One of the fun things about getting here is the zero gravity and floating around. But it also makes things very difficult.

Now, I've never flown in space; but the folks who have say that on landing day, you know, you've just spent maybe a week and a half, sometimes two weeks in orbit and you're used to the things happening slowly in space.

This has been a great experience for me. The first couple of days you don't always feel too well. You adjust to the fluid shifting, how to fly through space without hitting things or anybody else. But then you get in a groove.

When you lift off, the pressure is supposed to be maximum. But actually, it was very benign. Very enjoyable. But as soon as the engines cut off and you get to zero gravity, you felt as if you were being pushed off your seat. You feel disoriented. You don't feel aligned with anything. I felt for a few good hours that I was falling.

One of the coolest things to me about living in space was it really caused me to think about how the human body and mind can adapt to completely different environments.

People do really well on space missions, but it's the physiological, the medical stuff, the stuff like radiation, loss of bone mass and muscle mass and density. It's those things that we need to figure out.

Zero gravity is such an alien environment - completely different from everything we've grown up with every single day of our lives. And it's incomprehensible how much better it was than I anticipated it would be.