Scott Kelly has the world record of longest spaceflight. 340 days, almost a full year. Just recently astronaut Kristina Koch came quite close with 328 days. 

The book Endurance tells two parallel stories: about the year in space 2015/16, and the life story of Scott and how became an astronaut together with his twin brother Mark.

A year in space doesn’t sound like such a feat when we consider that there are people traveling to the International Space station ISS all the time and soon we are planning to go to Mars. The story about the year in space gives a very personal story on the risks and challenges with space travel and shows that space travel is still far away from easy and risk free.

When Scott gets home after the year in space he can hardly walk despite 2 hours of exercise he has done every day during his year in space. The book begins with him at a welcome home dinner 2 days after returning to earth. Every joint in the body hurts, legs are swollen and he has fever. When he is laying down his skin burns from a rash over his back as it is not used to gravity and pressure. The body has adapted to zero gravity in many ways by reducing bone mass, muscles etc and getting used to gravity again takes months.

Scott also gives a personal account of how difficult it is to be isolated both mentally and physically. Having your spouse and kids back on earth and trying to keep up the distance relationships despite reasonable connectivity. Being away from nature, from fresh food, inside a small metal structure floating in space. If something happens to your health, there is no doctor to examine you and perhaps perform surgery or give you a specialized drugs to treat. Supplies are not as certain as they might seem. Several cargo rocket launches failed during Scotts year in space and supplies were running out. It is also interesting to understand how frail the ISS is as a living environment. There is a constant risk of fire, a collision with space debries and particles and In order for astronauts and cosmonauts to be able to live, there are many processes that need to work seamlessly 24/7. Many are things we don’t need to worry to much about on earth. These are things like producing oxygen from water, removing excessive CO2 from the air, recycling water, ensuring solar panels are working, to working toilets, waste disposal etc. Everything has to work, all the time otherwise there will be serious problems very fast.

Scotts life story that is told in parallel to the year in space is encouraging for someone who hasn’t succeeded that well in early school years. He is barely managing his school and lacks vision of what he wants to do with his life until one day as freshman in college he picks up a book about a test pilot who went to space and gets excited, and finds his passion. He envisions himself as a fighter pilot and astranout and starts planning on what it takes to become one. Due to poor study performance he has to really put in all efforts. He only gets into a Maritime College but after working on his study technique and working hard, he gets into a flight school from where he graduates and gets to fly F14 Tomcat on aircraft carriers. After missions in e.g. Persian Gulf he becomes a test pilot and a few years later he applies to NASA to become a space shuttle pilot. He manages to get in to NASA at the same time as his twin brother. Scott goes onto flying two pace shuttle missions, first in 1999 fixing Hubble and second in 2007. Before his year long journey on ISS in 2015/16 he spent 3 months on ISS in beginning of 2011. It is quite a story of twin brothers becoming astronauts from growing up in a modest blue collar family with a father who is an alcoholic police officer and a mother who pushes herself to become a police officer in her mid career.

The book is highly recommended for anyone interested in astronaut life, how it is to live on ISS and inspiring personal success stories.

Links:

Scott Kelly reflects on his year in space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mupWhk2cbT0