NASA Sees Joint One-Year Missions With Russia as 'Valuable' - Space Life Research Chief

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th December, 2018) One-year US-Russian missions to the International Space Station would benefit NASA's preparations for flights beyond the Earth orbit, the US agency's director in charge of space life research told Sputnik.

The only such program began in March 2015 when Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko and US astronaut Scott Kelly flew to the humanity's only outpost in space.

Asked if another year-long mission could take place before the US administration ends its involvement in the ISS in 2025, NASA's Craig Kundrot said that, "We would like to see that from a human research program perspective because that would be very valuable."

NASA, he said, has a lot of experience at around two weeks from the Space Shuttle program, with the ISS giving them more experience at six months.

But the year-long mission, according to Kundrot, is an important analogue for preparing for long-duration missions.

"We have begun to see some issues we have not recognized earlier with shorter missions, most importantly the changes in astronauts' vision and in the eye. We think it's important to go to one-year missions if possible," he stressed.

He admitted that missions of more than a year in duration were a possibility, but right now they are "quite a bit in the future" and there are no concrete plans yet. Year-long joint missions to the ISS would go in parallel with shorter ones, he added.