Astronaut Mark Kelly gives space travel talk at Emory | DeKalb … – MDJOnline.com

When it comes to living life as an adventure and beating the odds, American astronaut Captain Mark Kelly can give numerous examples of how he has accomplished both of those goals.

Mark and his identical twin brother Scott Kelly, who is also an astronaut, are the only siblings to have ever traveled in space, providing NASA with a unique and extremely rare opportunity to study the physical differences caused by living in space versus on Earth with two people who share the exact same DNA.

Kelly discussed these experiments and more during a talk at the packed Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church Tuesday to kick off the 2017 Atlanta Science Festival which runs through March 25.

After starting his career in the Navy, Kelly trained with NASA and took his first flight into space in 2001. He described the feeling of seeing the Earth from space as a moment that changed his entire attitude about our planet.

Earth is a round, mostly blue ball just floating there in blackness of space and we were orbiting around it every 90 minutes. The thing that struck me when I first saw it is that our planet is literally an island in our solar system, he said. When you see this from space for the first time, it changes your attitude about the Earth and atmosphere and how we need to take care of this place. From our perspective in orbit, our atmosphere looks like a contact lens on an eyeball, it is so thin.

Kelly discussed his time living on the international space station, which weighs one million pounds and is about the size of a football field, and the physical feeling of lifting off in a shuttle which he described as extremely turbulent and like the hand of God comes down and grabs you and rips your off the planet.

However the biggest challenge Kelly faced in life did not involve a dangerous space mission, he said. It was the moment he learned that his wife, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, had been shot in an assignation attempt.

As it would turn out, my wife was the one who would nearly lose her life serving her country, Kelly said. With combat missions or space flight, there is a countdown clock and I understand the decisions I need to make. But on that day, I was at home talking to my kids and I learned my wife had been shot. I have to tell you, it was the most challenging experience of my life.

Giffords was brought to a rehabilitation facility in Houston, Texas, where she recovered some of her ability to walk, speak, read and write. In 2011, Giffords traveled to Kennedy Space Center to watch the launch of STS-134, the final flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour, which was commanded by Mark Kelly.

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After his talk at Emory, Kelly answered audience questions when asked what space smells like, he likened the odor to burnt plastic and when asked how living in space for long periods of time affects the human body, Kelly described how the experiments with himself and his twin brother helped NASA understand that humans lose bone density more rapidly in space.

Kelly concluded his talk by telling future astronauts to stay positive and excited about what is to come for space exploration.

SpaceX in particular is doing some pretty remarkable things. Hopefully, one day well be sending US rockets to the moon, beyond the moon and all the way to Mars, Kelly said. I wanted to be the first person to walk on Mars, but it aint happening. Every kid here has a much greater chance of going and it will be an incredible trip.

For more information about Mark Kelly and the ongoing Atlanta Science Festival, visit http://www.atlantasciencefestival.org.

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Astronaut Mark Kelly gives space travel talk at Emory | DeKalb ... - MDJOnline.com