NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, the first American astronaut to complete a one-year mission in space and also one of the first astronauts to even take up the challenge, has returned to earth along with significant knowledge about the life in space. Kelly had embarked on the year-long mission along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko.

Before Kelly, it was Russian cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev who had spent a year in microgravity in 1999. The latest mission has built upon Avdeyev’s knowledge and has cleared decks for future missions.

After this latest NASA mission that made use of 21st century technology and approaches, the American space agency has partnered with its counterparts in other parts of the world to carry out several researches to analyze how the human body changes during a year in space. Two such studies would be on fluid shifts and field tests and the mission would be to deal with the effects of long spaceflights on human body.

Scientists say while fluid shifts deal with changes in the visual system, field tests are associated with post-landing capabilities of astronauts immediately after long spaceflights.

John Charles, chief scientist of the NASA Human Research Program, said, “Working with additional partners is not necessarily easy because different countries have particular processes they follow”.

Charles, who has a doctoral degree in physiology and biophysics, said differing approaches to solving problems must be considered, but when new processes are learned that can benefit future missions or reduce duplication of tasks, that is considered a successful partnership.

The motive of the Human Research Program is to allow space exploration by cutting down on the risks to human health and performance through a focused program of basic, applied, and operational research, which may lead to the development and delivery of human health, performance, and habitability standards.