Station crew discusses life in space with former President BushAboard the International Space Station, Expedition 46 commander Scott Kelly and flight engineer Tim Kopra of NASA discussed Kelly's year-long mission and research aboard the orbital laboratory during a conversation Feb. 5 with former President George H.W. Bush who paid a visit to Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Mr. Bush was accompanied in Mission Control by Kelly's twin brother, Mark Kelly and his wife, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The linkup came less than four weeks before Kelly's return to Earth with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos to complete a year-long mission designed to gather valuable biomedical data that will be used in the formulation of a human mission to Mars.
Kelly and Kornienko are scheduled to land in a Soyuz spacecraft on the steppe of Kazakhstan on March 2, Kazakhstan time (March 1, U.S. time).