Among those eagerly awaiting astronaut Scott Kelly's return Tuesday from the International Space Station are researchers at UC San Diego.
In addition to the experiments he performed during his year-long stay in space, Kelly was also an experiment himself.
Scott has a twin, also an astronaut, named Mark, who stayed on earth during the last year. Scientists want to compare the identical twins to analyze the effects of long-term space travel on the human body.
Brinda Rana, a geneticist at UC San Diego and the principal investigator of the UC San Diego School of Medicine study, told KPBS Midday Edition on Monday that the research could help NASA prepare for a trip to Mars.
"We're now studying, at the molecular level, how these physiological effects are occurring," Rana said. "So of course with just two subjects we're not going to have definitive results, but these will provide clues of how molecules and populations of molecules change over the course of a long-term space flight."
