Out Of This World

As his book Endurance readies to hit stands, US astronaut Scott Kelly talks about the funny side of living on a space station.

- Nick Stockton

Before he rocketed off to spend a year in space, one of Scott Kelly’s final acts on Earth was peeing on the back tyre of a van. Not because you can’t pee in space (you can – it just requires some suction). It’s tradition: Yuri Gagarin, who made it to space first, did the same thing. In Kelly’s new book, Endurance, the veteran astronaut writes about that and all the other weird practices and rituals and anxieties and safety checks and responsibilities and more safety checks that go into preparing for, and then spending, a chunk of your life in perpetual free fall. The main takeaway: It’s hard. Coffee comes in plastic bags. Space smells funny. There’s never enough chocolate pudding. But these pesky truths, along with some extreme ennui, are something humans will have to confront if we ever hope to pack our bags and move to Mars.

What did you miss most during your year on the International Space Station?