A Year in Space

SCOTT KELLY: Flying in space... you know, I really miss the rain.

The sound of rain, and the rain hitting you when you're walking outside.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: In two months Scott Kelly will begin a yearlong stay in space.

♪ [Jimi Hendrix playing All Along the Watchtower] JEFFREY KLUGER: Everything you know.

Everything you love.

Everything humanity has ever known is 250 miles below you.

SCOTT: I said to my brother I'll be in space and flying all the way around the sun one lap in a year.

And he's like, yeah, so will I.

The rest of us will be doing the same thing on spaceship Earth.

AMIKO KAUDERER: It's just such a different thing when there's someone you know, and someone you love, right there at the pointy tip of that rocket.

CHARLOTTE KELLY: I'd like to wish you good luck on your trip.

I love you, Daddy.

SCOTT: A lot can happen in a year.

REPORTER: The unmanned rocket bound for the station with much needed food and supplies exploded... ♪ All along the watchtower ♪ SCOTT: Yeah, it seems like I've been up here for a long time already.

♪ KLUGER: Scott Kelly is going to do what no American has ever done before-- spend an unbroken year in space.

ASTRONAUT: Oh, man.

SCOTT: I feel pretty fortunate that I get to risk it all one more time.

♪ ANNOUNCER: A Year In Space was made possible in part ♪ ♪ [rumbling] [indistinct public address announcement] [rumbling] [Russian public address announcement] [rumbling fades] [man speaking Russian] SCOTT KELLY: I used to have a nightmare when I was a kid, where I was on the rocket launching to...to the moon.

And something bad happened.

I don't remember what the bad thing was.

But it was something for me as a kid that was quite terrifying.

[beeping] GENNADY PADALKA: Misha?

MARK KELLY: It is pretty remarkable to see this pinprick of light over the course of hours eventually become this space station that's the size of a football field.

♪ MARK: You know, the whole process of rendezvousing and docking with this thing that's moving 17,500 miles an hour is a pretty incredible concept.

So the way you rendezvous with the spacecraft is you kind of get underneath it and you sneak up on it.

TERRY VIRTS: Do you know where they are right now?

SAMANTHA CRISTOFORETTI: No.

[indistinct].

MARK: Ultimately you have to fly within a couple of inches to get these two things to come together.

VIRTS: Just a second, let me... [indistinct conversation] [metallic clang] NASA ANNOUNCER: You can see the International Space Station smack dab in the middle of your view there.

Soyuz craft in view from the International Space Station on its final approach towards the Poisk module.

MARK: At the end, you know, there's no computers helping you anymore.

The commander has to manually fly this thing.

RUSSIAN CONTROLLER: 45 meters... point 19 meters to secondary.

NASA ANNOUNCER: Soyuz continuing to close in.

MARK: You're just looking out the window and using your skills as a pilot.

And you've got to be accurate within about two inches.

[machinery whirring] CONTROLLER: Antenna is closed.

[speaking Russian] NASA ANNOUNCER: Getting confirmation the Kurs antenna has been retracted.

♪ We'll be standing by for docking confirmation.

Under ten meters away.

[man speaking Russian] NASA ANNOUNCER: Coming up on five meters.

♪ [click] CONTROLLER: Contact.

♪ ♪ ♪ SCOTT: I've been doing risky things since I was a little kid.

I think it's part of my genetics.

I'm kind of surprised I've made it this far, actually.

MAN: Let me know if you're good to stay in for another hour.

SCOTT: I've been training for this one-year mission for over two years.

MAN: OK, got my safety tether hooked up.

SCOTT: This being my second time flying a long duration flight, the training is going well.

You know, a year is a long time.

And a lot can happen in a year.

JEFFREY KLUGER: The biggest justification for the Year In Space experiment is to see how well the human body can withstand long-term space travel.

A trip to and from Mars would take, say, two and a half years.

Getting to Mars requires multiple systems in NASA to be working at once.

The system that's the most fragile and destructible of all, however, is the human body.

♪ SCOTT: NASA'S doing kind of a comparative study between my brother Mark and I, since we have very similar DNA.

You know, that we're identical twins.

This is, this thing is not meant to walk around in.

WOMAN: No.

MARK: While twins are born with the same genetic material, it changes over time.

And maybe it changes more rapidly in space than on Earth.

MAN: You'll get tired soon.

SCOTT: Yeah.

SCOTT: Would I fly to Mars?

Well, I wouldn't fly the one-way trip to Mars.

[laughs] I don't know.

Maybe I like Earth too much.

Yeah, but what you miss is the people.

And then the weather.

It's kind of like, well, it's going outside.

You know, you never-- There's no sun on your face, you never feel this on my feet, this fire.

You never feel this cool breeze.

It's always exactly the same.

AMIKO KAUDERER: You have your tunes, your headphones?

SCOTT: Mm-hmm.

♪ Yeah.

AMIKO: What did you say this morning that was funny, and I told you don't say that yet?

God.

What were we talking about?

Oh, you said, when you said, "Goodbye, bed."

SCOTT: Goodbye, bed.

AMIKO: Goodbye, bed.

SCOTT: I'm going to miss your silky smoothness.

♪ SAMANTHA KELLY: Can we be really quiet for a sound test real quick?

CROWD: Shhh.

WOMAN: Sound check!

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS: Hello, Scott.

MARK: Hey, Gabby and I just wanted to say "bon vayarge."

How do you say that?

Bon voyage.

And we know you only have a couple more days here in the US, and then you're gone for, I don't know, like five years or something.

CHARLOTTE KELLY: Hi, Dad.

I'd like to wish you good luck on your trip.

It's exciting, and you're going to be working.

But remember to take in the view.

I love you, Daddy.

♪ [helicopter] ♪ ♪ KLUGER: Ever since the shuttle stood down, the US has no way to get astronauts into space.

Baikonur is the only way you can get out of town if what you're talking about is getting off the Earth.

♪ If you grew up in the Cold War, this was as deep into what was perceived as the Death Star as it was possible to go.

♪ It was the place that gave us the Soviet dominance of the high ground of space, and it scared the daylights out of us.

♪ MAN: You may fire when ready.

SCOTT: You know, at one time, this was not a place that was acknowledged to exist.

When I was a lieutenant in the US Navy in the early '90s, I was flying an F-14 Tomcat, and our primary mission was to shoot down the Russian bomber.

If we ever, you know, went to war, it was quite possible that we would have been, you know, fighting against one another.

♪ The Soyuz, the word in Russian stands for "union," and we train in this one sometimes.

So there's three crew members in here.

The seat I'm sitting in is for the main flight engineer, Misha Kornienko, that I'm going to be on the space station for a whole year with.

SCOTT: You know, I've known him for 15 years, since I first started coming out here.

I call him my brother from another mother.

[laughs] And he thinks that's funny.

There is obviously tension between the US and Russia.

But it's not something that the crewmembers ever talk about.

You know, we're not politicians, and we leave it to the politicians from our respective countries to do that for us.

[camera shutters clicking] [camera shutters clicking] ♪ KLUGER: Preparing to go to space, especially for a year, is an exercise in serial leave-taking.

You go from your home, to Russia, to the hermetically sealed environment of your spacecraft, until finally you go to orbit.

Step by step, you decouple from what's familiar on Earth.

Step by step, you decouple from the world you know.

♪ SAMANTHA: I was asking him, I'm like, are the nerves getting to you, are you getting excited?

And he was like, "You know, if I'm nervous, it's not for the launch, you know, it's for being away for a year, being away from you and your sister and Amiko and my brother for a year."

♪ ♪ AMIKO: Here they come.

MAN: Cameras at the ready.

♪ [crowd cheering] ♪ [intercom chatter] ♪ RUSSIAN ANNOUNCER: Contact.

Everything is fine.

NASA ANNOUNCER: And contact and capture confirmed.

The one year crew has arrived.

[laughter] VIRTS: Coming in together?

Scott, welcome to space, man.

[cosmonauts speaking Russian] [overlapping conversations] NASA ANNOUNCER: All crew members now aboard the International Space Station.

♪ ♪ SCOTT: When I got here, it almost felt like I had never left.

It's amazing how your body remembers actually being here.

♪ KLUGER: Astronauts who have been to the space station before and come back to it experience a high at first.

It's a homecoming.

It's a place they feel sentimental about, even though it's just a gigantic machine.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: Scott, good morning!

SCOTT: Good morning to you.

I'm not sure where you are.

You might be in Los Angeles.

But greetings to you there in the US.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: Washington, DC, Scott!

You won't return to Earth until the spring of 2016!

How far away does that seem to you, Scott?

SCOTT: Well, I'm trying not to think about how far away that is, 'cause it is pretty far.

A friend of mine suggested maybe it's better to count up versus counting down.

Haven't started doing that yet, either.

I live and work here now.

I'm going to be here for a long time, and as such, I just kind of have to pace myself.

♪ It was interesting seeing how the space station, by and large, does not look like it aged four years since I was here last.

You know, I often try to describe what this space station is like, and you know, the engineering miracle that it is.

It's one of the most complicated things that we as humans have ever built.

CRISTOFORETTI: Sorry, Scott, I'm sorry.

SCOTT: It's a million pounds, over the size of a football field.

KLUGER: The space station is made principally of 15 different modules.

There's a US segment at one end, and a Russia segment at the other end.

But it's all part of a single integrated whole.

MAN: Any words for the camera?

KLUGER: The personnel aboard the space station is an always changing thing.

KLUGER: Three new people come up.

Three existing people will go down.

The first few days on the space station an astronaut has to acclimate to the minute-by-minute, almost nanosecond-by-nanosecond schedule.

♪ Snap back to reality, oh, there goes gravity ♪ ♪ Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked ♪ ♪ He's so mad, but he... ♪ SCOTT: So far today, for me personally, I had some exercise, my first of two exercise sessions.

And then I did some research.

MAN ON INTERCOM: There's a point where there's a certain acceleration where the fluid starts to move.

And that's what we're really interested in.

SCOTT: While I'm here we'll do over 400 different experiments.

The pace of work at times can be hectic.

We're operators of the equipment.

VIRTS: You got a hot trigger?

SCOTT: We're the housekeeper, the person that cleans the place.

What are you doing there, Terry?

SCOTT: Sometimes you're fixing things.

Sometimes your days might be devoted to a lot of science.

MAN ON INTERCOM: Yeah, we like that plan moving forward, Scott.

SCOTT: This morning I was doing an experiment called Spheres that uses these small satellites and control algorithms that, you know try to understand how to control satellites in space.

♪ The blue satellite returned 101, and the red satellite said OK. MAN: Great.

We're going to get some great data out of this.

We're good to keep moving forward.

SCOTT: Misha sleeps in the US segment and the cosmonauts do some activities down here, but for the most part we just kind of wave in passing.

Are you filming this?

VIRTS: Yeah.

SCOTT: OK.

I see we got some creamed spinach, asparagus, and grilled chicken.

It's going to go on a tortilla.

Go ahead, Samantha.

Yeah.

We have Russian food.

We have some European food.

I have a Japanese crewmember that will be getting up here next month, and we'll have some Japanese food when he gets here.

Ah.

Can't let the little droplets get too far.

Surface tension is very important.

If we didn't have surface tension in space, we'd be in big trouble in a lot of areas.

Am I in this?

VIRTS: You are in this.

Yes.

SCOTT: Hmm.

She got the... she got the fancy stuff.

Hers is made by a chef.

CRISTOFORETTI: Yeah.

SCOTT: And is best before July 2016.

This is probably best before July 2013.

[laughs] ♪ VIRTS: Stuff.

It's a module full of stuff.

Kind of our basement.

KLUGER: Every single bit of cargo in that spacecraft is measured down to the ounce.

Every payload that comes up is essential.

VIRTS: Wet trash bags.

Disinfectant wipes.

Hygiene towels are what you use to take a shower with.

I need a washcloth.

You get one a week.

Come in here and grab a washcloth.

KLUGER: There's not a single piece of equipment, food, or clothing aboard the International Space Station that didn't have to get there by a rocket.

You don't know what's going to happen until that rocket takes off.

There is a real and measurable chance it won't get there at all.

NASA ANNOUNCER: Good day from the International Space Station Flight Control Room at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

You are looking live at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where a Soyuz booster rocket is poised for launch to deliver more than three tons of supplies for the expedition crew aboard the International Space Station.

3...2...1...

Maximum thrust, and lift-off.

♪ The flight of the Progress 59, the launch and ascent and climb to orbit all was nominal.

But a series of telemetry problems were detected... and no docking attempt will be made.

SCOTT: Initially we were hopeful that, you know, the Russian Space Agency was going to be able to figure out the problem and, you know, get that resupply ship here.

But we plan for these kind of failures.

MARK: There are extra supplies aboard the International Space Station.

Losing one spacecraft, you know, isn't... you know, it's a big deal, but it is not the end of the world.

[speaking Russian] VIRTS: That was a Russian ship, so most of the equipment was for them, most of the food was for them, so we've been sharing as much as we can.

SCOTT: The one issue, though, is fresh food.

VIRTS: How is it, Anton?

ANTON SHKAPLEROV: Oh, very cold.

SCOTT: We don't have things that are fresh very often.

It's only when we get a resupply ship.

And that stuff doesn't last very long.

So we really look forward to that.

We have to keep pressing forward with, you know, the resources we have, and that's what we're doing here on board the space station.

♪ ♪ The science that we're doing on Misha and I is to understand how we can live and work in space for longer periods of time so we can eventually go to Mars.

When you've been in space a long time, you can try stuff like this.

We need to understand better the bone loss, the muscle loss that occurs in microgravity.

Ahh!

Almost.

[laughs] I will make it down to the end one of these days.

You know, sometimes I think I feel completely normal.

But then the next day I think, you know, I don't.

[laughs] SCOTT: There's effects on our vestibular system, effects on our brain and our cognition, and how, you know, what is our ability to perform very complicated, you know, tasks that involve a lot of concentration.

How does that change over longer periods of time in space?

When do I stop spinning?

It doesn't really say that.

MAN ON INTERCOM: Two minutes, Scott.

SCOTT: These are ice bricks to keep our human samples, blood and other things, cold when we return them back to Earth.

We need to understand better the effects of radiation on our DNA.

You know, we get a lot of radiation up here, but hopefully, you know, we'll come to know a lot more about being in space for a really long time.

♪ MARK: The thing that I worry about, and I think my brother probably thinks about, "What's the radiation dose?"

What's the impact of that over the next 40 years?

I mean, is that going to result in him getting some kind of cancer?

It's the big unknown.

But that's a choice he made, you know, to further science, to further our space program.

I wouldn't normally do this, but the fact that my brother... Well, this is new.

All right, you're gonna have to give me a little lesson.

MALE VOICE: Push very firmly with a thumb on the plunger to activate the needle shield.

SCOTT: Hmm.

OK.

The stuff that involves my brother is in most cases genetic-based.

So it's samples, blood, urine, other samples that our bodies give off.

MARK: You got a little alcohol swab?

SCOTT: Ow.

MARK: Done!

DAN HUOT: If you don't mind, I mean, I'll jump right in.

We've gotten a lot of questions over the last week obviously in the wake of the loss of the cargo vehicle.

How are the supply levels looking for you guys on board the International Space Station?

SCOTT: I'm still consciously thinking about, you know, maybe using all the food we have.

Water, I'm definitely thinking about that.

Um, you know, of course, if we had any further delays in our resupplies, then, you know, we'd have some issues.

LAUNCH CONTROLLER: Five, four, three, two, one.

Ignition sequence start... and lift-off of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

T plus two minutes.

Altitude, 32 kilometers; speed, one kilometer per second; down range distance 13 kilometers.

And we appear to have had a launch vehicle failure.

Standing by for some information.

♪ MARK: That was a big deal for a number of reasons.

We lost all the food and the supplies.

So now the crew members get into the position of really having to start to think about, you know, we're getting to the point where we might have to start rationing our food.

SCOTT: Creamed spinach... KLUGER: Scott's now been in space for three months... VIRTS: A cloud of creamed spinach.

KLUGER: ...and already he's been aboard for two disasters.

Either Scott's mission is badly snake-bit, or this was just two unrelated bits of bad luck.

Either way, he's now flying on a undersupplied space station, and he has to be aboard for nine more months.

CONTROLLER: Station, Houston on two for Scott with regard to late notice of conjunction.

SCOTT: Go ahead on two, Jay.

CONTROLLER: Scott, we wanted to synch up with you and the entire crew here.

We'll get you what we have at the moment in preparation for you closing hatches.

NASA ANNOUNCER: Earlier this morning there was a late notification of a possible conjunction with a piece of space debris identified as an old Russian satellite.

KLUGER: Ever since the first satellite launched in 1957, we've been leaving junk in space.

There's now a massive debris belt circling the Earth made up of millions of particles of various sizes.

NASA tracks the bigger ones, the most dangerous ones, and is always alert to when one might be threatening the space station.

MARK: You think the getting there and the coming back are the most dangerous parts.

And intuitively, it feels like it is.

Statistically for him, the most dangerous part is while he's in space.

When you're in space for a year, the risk of having a fire on board, or an ammonia leak, or having orbital debris hitting the space station, that's the highest risk.

SCOTT: The space station is fragile.

If it did get hit with something going really fast, very large, it could do some damage.

How about relative velocity.

Any idea?

CONTROLLER: Closing velocity of 14 kilometers per second.

KLUGER: When the space station is in any way facing danger, the astronauts must shelter in place.

They have to climb inside their Soyuz, close all the hatches, and be prepared to bail out if the worst happens.

[speaking Russian] ♪ NASA ANNOUNCER: Flight controllers standing by here in Mission Control.

Just 30 seconds to go until the time of closest approach.

♪ ♪ ♪ SCOTT: I don't know how many days we've been here.

There's a sense of like a loss of freedom, and you definitely get a sense that, you know, you're here and you're not leaving for a long time.

♪ Last night, we had some incredible aurora outside.

Like none I've ever seen before.

♪ So, you know, what's Earth?

I kind of forgot what it's like to live down there, it seems like.

And I'm being sincere!

There are certain, like, senses and things that I'm, like, wow, that seems like so, so, long ago.

[splash] [crowd roars] OBAMA: Higher wages... [speaking Russian] [clock ticking] SCOTT: And, you know, I also look at it like I have a long ways ahead of me, too.

LESTER HOLT: Chaos in the streets as riot police... ♪ AMIKO: I wake up thinking about him.

I go to bed thinking about him.

I talk to him every day, at least once.

We're in the middle of a conversation.

He goes, "Hey, look."

I should be flying over Houston soon."

And I was like, "Oh, cool."

So I ran outside.

I had my little footies on, you know.

Run outside, and I'm standing on the patio, and we're just having this conversation, and I'm looking, looking, and looking.

And then all of a sudden, I see it, and I'm just jumping up and down, you know, like "I see you, I see you, I see you!"

I like to take videos-- really short little clips because I recall certain things that he talked about missing.

I'm in Memorial Park going for a bike ride.

He even talked about this recently.

He was talking about he missed the weather and he missed the rain.

And so one morning it was just a deluge, and so I just ran outside, stuck my feet out, and just recorded the rain.

It's a beautiful rainy day here in Houston.

[rain falling] CONTROLLER: Station, this is Houston.

Are you ready for the event?

SCOTT: We are ready for the event.

INTERVIEWER: Hey, thanks a lot.

Really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today.

And, Scott, I think I'm going to start with you.

I mean, how important is tomorrow's Japanese HTV launch to build up the station's reserves again?

SCOTT: Yeah, it's pretty important.

You know, if for some reason HTV didn't get here, we'd get pretty low on certain consumables.

So, it is a very important launch for us coming up.

JAPANESE ANNOUNCER: We have a lift-off of the HTV launch vehicle number 5 at 8:50:49 PM on August 19, 2015, Japan standard time.

♪ ♪ KIMIYA YUI: OK, everything looks good.

KJELL LINDGREN: The light is essentially centered on the circle, and the circle is essentially centered on the corridor center.

CONTROLLER: Our capture prep is confirmed, and we are ready for HTV capture.

♪ And three meters and closing.

Capture confirmed.

[cheering] HTV-5 delivering over four and a half tons of supplies to the International Space Station.

♪ SCOTT: Space has its own unique smell.

Whenever a vehicle docks, the smell of space when you open up the hatch is very distinct.

[laughter] SCOTT: It's kind of like a burning metal smell, if you could imagine what that would smell like.

[foil crinkling] P-106 to J-106 on the node-2 side.

LINDGREN: So node-2 side first.

SCOTT: Yeah.

We just got the new supplies, and it really helped with regards to our provisioning.

SCOTT: Look up.

LINDGREN: Come on, everybody!

SCOTT: So, I've been craving a corned beef and cabbage sandwich from the Carnegie Deli in New York City.

SERGEY VOLKOV: Have you been to that New York Pizza place down in... PADALKA: Do you remember that German Restaurant?

SCOTT: You done?

INTERVIEWER: I want to start out by asking you to what extent do you see your job as building the case for space exploration?

SCOTT: Well, you know we have a lot of jobs up here.

Being the ambassador for space flight is also one of them, and it's important.

And we have, you know, a unique perspective up here.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Station, this is CNN, how do you hear me?

SCOTT: We hear you loud and clear... loud and clear... loud and clear.

Can you hear me?

AMANPOUR: You are halfway through nearly a yearlong mission.

REPORTER: What do you guys do for fun?

SCOTT: I watched Hot Tub Time Machine 2 a few weeks ago.

AMANPOUR: Can you flip, can you dance?

REPORTER: Do some party tricks.

[laughs] STEPHEN COLBERT: It's like I am an astronaut right now.

SCOTT: Happy Halloween... Good evening, Yanni.

MAN: Hey, Mr. Kelly.

MAN: Hi, Scott.

MAN: Hello, Scott.

MAN: What features are important on an astronaut's watch?

SCOTT: Uh... OBAMA: Congratulations to you.

How are you feeling, generally?

SCOTT: Yes, sir, I'm feeling great.

It shouldn't be a problem getting to the end with enough energy and enthusiasm to complete the job.

There's a window right here that looks right down on the Earth.

It's actually open now.

It's dark.

Not sure exactly where we are.

But you definitely feel like you're, you know, you're here, and everyone else and everything that you care about and love and, you know, is important to you is down there.

♪ CHARLOTTE: The fact that I know that he's up there and he might be missing me kind of makes me feel sad for him.

Because I have friends and family down here when he only has the other astronauts up there.

Last year I had some experiences where kids wouldn't even talk to me until they found out my dad was an astronaut.

And I don't like the idea of being known for something I never really contributed to.

I'm OK with saying yeah, my dad's awesome; he's pretty awesome.

But this is my dad's work.

I don't want to take credit for what he's doing.

He's a lot like me in a sense, where you can't really tell our emotions.

It's always been the folded arms and the Jedi Knight soldier kind of thing.

Scott Kelly is astronaut guy.

He's very serious.

And then when you get to know my father, he's kind of goofy and silly... and very nice.

And it's kind of interesting, the difference between astronaut guy and Scott Kelly the person.

♪ SCOTT: You know, having this vantage point from space, we can, you know, see the effects of our presence on Earth.

There are no political borders when you look down at the planet.

So it does look like we are all part of one big team.

♪ It never gets old looking at the Earth.

The Earth's a very beautiful place.

I like taking very detailed pictures of the Earth.

♪ For me it's somewhat of a challenge to figure out something I want to get a picture of and have the timing all work out and get a really good shot.

♪ KLUGER: Scott's been up there for seven months now.

Coming home is still so far away that you can't begin looking forward to it.

It's those critical months, months 7, 8, and 9, that if you are going to find that your performance has slacked off and that your mood has taken a nosedive, that's when it's going to happen.

SCOTT: I'll continue to turn these, but I've turned them, I don't know, a hundred times, pushing on the bolts, and they all seem to behave the same way.

The work we do takes a lot of concentration.

OK, I think I see the problem here.

The stowage note calls out for a 5/32 hex.

OK, I see it, never mind.

You know, for me the hardest thing has been trying to manage that level of fatigue.

So when I get to the end of this I have, you know, as much in the tank as I did in the beginning.

If I was to go to sleep right now, I might be watching a movie or something.

Obviously have to turn these lights out.

Ooh.

Oh, boy.

One thing I've never done is a spacewalk.

Kind of curious to see how I'll feel when we open the hatch.

♪ You know, if there's a kind of scared of heights aspect to it.

CONTROLLER: Start your buddy checks, head to toe.

Call it out, I'll let you know if you missed anything.

SCOTT: I think the longer you've been up here, the more prepared you are to go outside.

That's good.

Your ability to move around and understand how you need to control your body.

YUI: Helmet lights, operational, regular check.

SCOTT: And how the small amounts of force you use to move and position yourself is something you really get a good sense for over time.

CONTROLLER: Action and airlock.

ASTRONAUT: The gate is closed, and the slider is locked.

CONTROLLER: Copy that, guys.

Houston, he's on 1.

We're go for EVA.

SCOTT: EV-1 copies.

LINDGREN: EV-2 copies.

NASA ANNOUNCER: Thanks, guys, and I'll see you on the other side.

SCOTT: EV-1 copies.

LINDGREN: EV-2 copies.

SCOTT: I wasn't sure whether we were going to open up the hatch in daylight or darkness.

I wasn't quite sure what time of day it was.

The hatch doesn't have a window in it.

LINDGREN: And, Houston, the hatch is open.

♪ SCOTT: You're looking through one pane of glass, that the helmet visor is, and your face is kind of up in the visor, so your field of view is much greater.

It is just a completely different level of color and brilliance than we see here looking out the windows.

LINDGREN: Oh, man.

CONTROLLER: Untie that wire tie, just one twist.

And then, working the bag straps one at a time, take out that portion of the cable that you need.

SCOTT: We're going to run a bunch of cables that will allow for commercial crew vehicles to someday dock with the space station.

There's this alpha-magnetic spectrometer that's having some cooling issues.

We're going to put some insulating blankets on it.

CONTROLLER: Nice work.

SCOTT: Our robot arm has a sticky end effector that I'm going to lubricate.

So I'm not too confident in that one, so I'd suggest I put some more grease on the cradle and try it again.

CONTROLLER: That's how you earn your paycheck today.

♪ ♪ SCOTT: Hey, so how was school today?

CHARLOTTE: It was good.

SCOTT: What else is going on?

CHARLOTTE: Uh, nothing, really.

Just doing Spanish homework.

And after that I'm going to do math.

SCOTT: So you still want the same stuff for Christmas?

CHARLOTTE: What is the same stuff?

SCOTT: Same stuff you always want.

CHARLOTTE: Money?

[laughs] Have you gotten your Christmas presents yet?

SCOTT: I did!

I thank you for the t-shirt.

CHARLOTTE: You're welcome.

SCOTT: I appreciate that.

CHARLOTTE: I think I put like a bell in there that was like "#1 Dad."

SCOTT: Got the bell and the card, too, yeah.

My third Christmas in space!

CHARLOTTE: Well, Merry Christmas!

SCOTT: So we have... we have Mexican.

SCOTT: Hi, Scott Kelly aboard the International Space Station.

I want to go and check on my flowers I'm growing here, with my red camera selfie stick.

It is pretty cool in here-- the color at least.

I have to try to focus this myself.

We were taking care of these as a kind of a collaboration with the guys on the ground, but there was too much lag time.

So I started just kind of taking care of them myself.

And, uh... and they're doing a lot better.

Some of them aren't doing great, but a couple of them-- one is doing really well, and the other one is kind of making a comeback sort of.

They should be blooming here pretty soon.

It's kind of nice to have some flowers up here, when you don't see much that is alive and growing.

♪ ♪ >> YOU KNOW, FOR A LONG TIME I WAS COUNTING UP, SO I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU HOW MANY DAYS WE'’’VE BEEN HERE.

IT'’’S DEFINITELY OVER 300, BUT I CAN'’’T TELL YOU EXACTLY.

I CAN TELL YOU THERE ARE 26 DAYS LEFT, BUT THAT IS MOSTLY BECAUSE MY FRIEND MISHA HERE KEEPS REMINDING ME HOW MANY DAYS WE HAVE LEFT.

SOME OF US GUYS IN THE BLACK SHIRTS HERE ARE GOING HOME TOMORROW, WHICH, OF COURSE, IS ALWAYS BITTERSWEET, WHEN YOU LEAVE THIS INCREDIBLE PLACE.

THE SPACE STATION IS REALLY A MAGICAL PLACE TO LIVE AND WORK.

IT IS THE MOST INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE I THINK HUMANS CAN REALLY EXPERIENCE.

AT THE SAME TIME, WHEN YOU ARE IN ONE PLACE FOR A REALLY LONG TIME, AFTER A WHILE YOU WANT TO LEAVE.

AND UNDOCKING HAS OCCURRED.

MIKHAIL KORNIYENKO, SCOTT KELLY, SERGEI VOLKOV, ON THEIR WAY HOME.

>> COMMAND IS BEING ISSUED.

>> HAVING BEEN HERE FOR A LONG TIME, THE THING I'’’M MOST CONCERNED WITH IS THAT THIS WOULD BE THE LAST TIME I WOULD HAVE THE ABILITY TO DO THIS KIND OF THING.

>> STAND BY FOR THE START OF THE DEORBIT BURN.

>> WE CONFIRM THAT AT 6:32, THE THRUSTERS HAVE FIRED.

>> THE INTENSE HEAT OF REENTRY THAT BUILDS UP AROUND THE VEHICLE FORMS A PLASMA.

ALSO ENTERING THE PERIOD OF MAXIMUM G-FORCE LOADS, THE CREW MEMBERS EXPERIENCING FOUR TO FIVE TIMES EARTH'’’S GRAVITY.

>> IT IS LIKE GOING OVER NIAGARA FALLS IN A BARREL WHILE YOU ARE ON FIRE, AND AS SOON AS YOU REALIZE YOU'’’RE NOT GOING TO DIE, IT IS THE MOST FUN YOU HAVE EVER HAD.

>> ALL THREE CREW MEMBERS SAFELY OUT OF THE SOYUZ CRAFT, BACK ON EARTH AFTER 340 DAYS IN SPACE.

>> LEARNING TO LIVE AND WORK IN SPACE, I THINK THAT'’’S OUR FUTURE.

ONE OF THE GREAT THINGS ABOUT HAVING THE PRIVILEGE TO BE ABLE TO FLY IN SPACE IS BEING PART OF SOMETHING THAT YOU FEEL IS LARGER THAN YOURSELF.