earlier today, astronauts mark kelly and terry virts discussed ongoing nasa missions and research, including the mars mission. mr. kelly talked about nasa's study of himself and twin, scott kelly. this is about an hour. well, good morning, everybody. welcome to the national press club. my name is john hughes. i'm an editor at bloomberg first word. that's bloomberg's breaking news desk here in washington, and i am the president of the national press club. we have a historic day here in the national press club. our guest live via video link from the nsinternational space station is scott kelly. here at the table is mark kelly and terry virts. from the audience's right, david shepardson, washington bureau chief for the detroit news. robert kunz. frank mooring jr., senior editor. the washington bureau chief for the buffalo news and current chairman of the speakers' committee. senior vice president for business wires public policy wire and the press club member who organized this morning's breakfast. thank you, danny. a european space agency astronaut. bureau chief for the news agency of russia. vice president of advocacy and public affairs for the association of unmanned vehicle systems international and a national press club board member. welcome to you all. [ applause ] i also want to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences and our live audiences watching around the world on the internet. you can follow the action on twitter. use the hash tag nbc live. that's #npclive on twitter. 100 years ago, one of the first transcontinental telephone calls was made from the national press club. it marked the first time that a high-ranking u.s. official was photographed at the national press club because it was then secretary of state william jennings bryan who made that historic call to san francisco. earlier this year, vince surf, who gave a speech here and has been doing some work for nasa, asked the question what would be the 2015 equivalent of that 1915 phone call. well, some conversations that resulted from that question and some cooperation from nasa led us here for another first for the nationshtional press club, press conference, live messaging going up to space. it's a historic day. it raises the question for the national press club president of 2015, who are you going to call and how far away are you going to reach. it's very fascinating that we're here today, and i want to remind you all that our astronaut in space is scott kelly. kelly went to the space station in may to begin a 342-day stint there. sorry, it was march, not may. this was his brother who corrected me. this will be the longest ever stint by a u.s. astronaut. as of today, he is just under the halfway point to making history. here on the ground we have scott's twin brother, a retired nasa astronaut, captain mark kelly. he's undergoing a study with his brother to determine the effects of long duration space flights on the human body. we also have here on earth air force colonel terry virts, who was the most recent nasa astronaut to return from the international space station. i expect in a minute we'll be hearing from the international space station. what are you going to say to your brother if you're able to send a message to him this morning? >> so you want me to say it twice? we should wait until we have him on the screen. >> we'll be surprised. >> no, i talked to him yesterday. we've kind of caught up a little bit on what's been going on. there's a phone on the space station for folks that don't know that. it's kind of like an internet call. there he is in space. >> hey, scott. >> scott, can you hear us? >> this is houston. are you ready for the event? >> i'm ready for the event. >> national press club, this is mission control houston. please call station for voice check. >> station, this is national press club. how do you hear me? >> i have you loud and clear. welcome aboard the space station. >> welcome. thanks for joining us, scott. we have a full room here. i know it's around lunchtime up there. we just had breakfast. could you tell us what you're doing today? >> yeah, well, first of all, it's great to be here with you guys today. yeah, i know you're having breakfast because both my brother and terry virts there sent me pictures of their food. i guess they're trying to make me feel bad about what we have to eat up here. but today's actually a day off for us because we had some crew members departing late last week, so today is actually a free day. >> and what do you do on your day off on the international space station? >> you know, we have a lot of work up here with over 400 different science experiments going on throughout the year i'm here. we do a lot of work on the different systems that keep us alive, so mostly on the day off it's a time to rest and recover from a very hectic schedule. i generally take a lot of pictures of the earth, do e-mail, maybe watch something on tv. yesterday we were watching the texans game and the broncos game later, so that was nice. >> so you're about halfway to your yearlong goal. how do you feel? what effects have microgravity had on you so far in this almost six-month period? >> yeah. so i feel pretty good overall. i definitely recognize that i've been up here a long time and have just as long ahead of me, but i feel positive about it. i think if i manage my work, pace of work, and energy right i'll have enough in the tank to get to the end. i'm pretty sure i will. as far as physically, you know, i feel good. we have some pretty good exercise equipment up here. but there are a lot of effects of this environment that we can't see or feel like bone loss, effects on our vision, effects on our dna, rna, proteins. that's why we're studying this, me and misha, on this one-year flight. right now, the jury is out on that. we're going to have to get all the data, have the scientists analyze it, then submit the results for peer review, the stuff the scientists do, so hopefully we'll find out some great things about me and my colleague spending a year in space. >> so there's a lot of attention, a lot of interest, in getting to mars. how will your effort up there help us to get to mars? >> so a lot of the studies we're doing focuses -- particularly me and my russian colleague, this is an incredible facility we have. the international space station has a lot of capability to collect data on us. we have an ultrasound. we have these devices that measure our vision. next week, we're going to do imaging and data collection in a russian device that pulls the blood down towards our feet, lower body negative pressure device. from these experiments, we'll hopefully find out if there are any cliffs out there, if our vision gets significantly worse maybe after nine months or a year. even though the russians have flown on board the mirror space station for a year or longer in a couple of cases, they didn't have the technology we have today to figure this out. you know, the space station is also a great experiment in sustainable energy and life support equipment and understanding how that works and how we can maintain ourselves with these systems for longer periods of time. both of those things are going to help us go to mars someday. hopefully in the not too disstant future. >> as part of what's happening, you're undergoing a twins' study along with your brother here on the ground. explain how that is working. do you have any results on the twins' study so far? anything you can share or won't any of this be known until after your experience is done and you analyze all the data afterward? >> you know, i think most of it will be stuff that we learn y afterwards. i have had some interaction with some of the investigators. one thing that was -- i found somewhat interesting, maybe not too unexpected, our microbiom, that's stuff that's inside us, we have more cells of bacteria that we carry around with us that aren't -- isn't part of our body, but they just live inside of us. one of the principal investigators told me while i was up here she found it interesting that me and my brothers microbiom is completely different. it was kind of an interesting factoid, i guess. >> the goal, however, is that at the end of this you'll be able to document or nasa will be able to document as never before the effects of micro gravity on a human using a twin human to really get in at a detailed level. >> yeah, you know, it's kind of a serendipitous kind of thing. nasa has a lot of data on him going back to when we entered in 1995. they can look at that data and the data they collect with him over this year and see what kind of deviations that we have on a genetic level that could be a result of this environment, the weightlessness of this environment, the radiation we see, and from that, figure out other areas we can investigate so we can figure out our journey to mars and elsewhere. >> nasa estimates that the earth-like planet has double the earth's gravity. those scientists mentioned your heroic experiment and the effects on gravity when talking about this. so as you anticipate the physical recovery needed to return to earth's gravity from the weightlessness of the space station, how do you think humans can adapt to gravity stronger than earth's? >> i guess charles darwin proved the species, different species in general, are very adaptable to their environment, so i think over the long term it wouldn't be an issue. just like we've learned to live and work in micro gravity environment, i'm sure people could learn to live and work in an environment that's twice the amount of gravity. although i think so to be comfortable with that in that situation it would probably take a little bit longer to get comfortable up here weighing twice as much. when we come back from the space station, we do feel like you weigh 500 pounds, more than double your real weight. but it's something you adjust to very quickly. we as a species throughout evolution have shown that we're very adaptable. >> how long has it taken you to get used to this environment of micro gravity, and is it a constant process of adjustment or is it something that you figure out and then it's just there? >> you know, that's a really good question. you know, one i've never been asked before. what is the process of adjusting? so far i've found that it is a continuous thing. it gets less significant over time, but i do notice i can do things now that i couldn't do right when i first got up here, even though i'd flown 180 days in space before. my ability to move around has really improved over time and continues to improve. you just get more comfortable. you're clarity of thought is greater. your ability to focus, things like that. so i've found the adaptation has not stopped. it'll be interesting to see where i'm at six months from now. >> i know that on earth when they do experiments -- there you go. that's good. that's good. on earth, when they do experiments, they often put people down in a close environment and leave them there for months at a time to see how they interact with one another. now you're up there for a long time with your colleague. how about the human component of this, the human interaction? are there subjects that you need to avoid in talking about, or how do you learn to live with one person for such a long time or people so long up on the space station? >> you know, i think people find it hard to believe, but so far in my over 300 days -- actually approaching a year in space -- i've noticed very few conflicts. our international partners do a great job of selecting people to get along with in this type of harsh environment. i haven't had any issues, nor do i expect to have any or people that have issues with me, hopefully not. we get along great, and we're all one big team up here. we recognize how we rely on each other on a psychological level but also for our own personal safety. that goes -- it's just as important with my fellow astronaut up here as it is with my other international colleagues, including the russian cosmonauts on board. >> i'm going to bring in your brother here in minute, but do you think that you or mark got the better end of the deal on the twins' study? >> well, i think it depends. it's a privilege to fly on this flight, but when he sometimes sends me pictures of his breakfast, i'm a little envious. >> mark, what would you say to your brother? >> what about? breakfast? >> sure. >> i talked to him yesterday and we caught up on a few things. there is a phone on the space station so we can communicate other than this kind of setting. i was interested in what you thought about the houston texans first performance yesterday. >> well, fortunately, it's a long season, so i'm very optimistic they'll improve. i think there's areas where they need to, but regardless of how they do i'm a huge fan. feel fortunate to have football season here and have something to look forward to on the weekends. >> i have another question for scott. so in space, you can see he's got his legs down but he's not standing. his feet are actually under a hand rail. i think it is interesting what happens to your feet in space, so maybe you can share -- if you're comfortable with that, share that with folks. >> we don't really use the bottom of our feet much, so over time any calluses you have on your feet kind of fall off. after about five months up here, you have baby feet, but then you have a big callus on the top of your toe because you use that to move around. i was getting a massage. the masseuse said you have the softest feet i've ever felt in my whole life. my response was thank you. i'm very proud of them. >> scott, this is obviously probably the start of what will be a long experience for long human space flight missions as we contemplate mars and beyond in our future. you have been up there about halfway now, a near full year stint, but do you have any advice that you'd give to future astronauts who are going to be spending a long duration in space? anything you would pass on to them? >> you know, i was fortunate that i had flown almost six months my previous flight, so i sort of knew what i was getting into. but despite that, i did have certain american peoppprehensio go into something that was going to be more than twice as long, so i intentionally thought about ways for me to get to the end of this with as much energy as i had in the beginning. part of that is having a good balance between work and rest. i intentionally don't work at the same pace i did last time i was up here where i felt like i could go at 100% speed for the full six months. i can't do that. so i consciously try to throttle myself back a little bit at certain time and have a really good balance between work and rest, and that's what i would encourage anyone who attempts to spend this amount of time in this type of environment. you just have to pace yourself. >> in the remaining time you have up there, what are you most looking forward to in the next six months or so up there? >> we have a couple of space walks coming up, i look forward to that. i've never done a space walk. i'll be doing one with the guy that just got something out of the refrigerator, so we both look forward to that and that'll be a challenge for the two of us, but what i'm looking most forward to is just getting to the end of this with as much energy and enthusiasm as i had in the beginning and doing it safely and completing all of our mission objectives and getting all the science done. >> okay. last question. of all the things that you miss in your time away from earth and now after such a long time, what's the top of your list of things you miss from being down on the planet? >> so after being with other people, people you care about, your family, your friends, just going outside. this is a very closed environment. we can never leave. the lighting is always pretty much the same. the smells, the sounds. everything's the same. even i think most prisoners can get outside occasionally in a week, but we can't. that's what i miss after people. >> scott kelly, i want to thank you for joining us today on this historic day at the national press club. the audience wants to show its appreciation by giving you some applause. thank you. [ applause ] >> my pleasure. >> all right. see you later. somebody passed up a question and maybe it was one of ours. there were some large cameras in the pictures, are those to take pictures of earth or what are those used for? >> those were for earth. the lab where scott was, there's a very large window of high quality. when we don't have the experiment blocking the window, we can grab the camera and take pictures. scott's been really good. i had a tendency to take big picture views where you can see the earth and space and stars. it's one of the favorite things we do in space is take pictures. >> what was the room that he was coming to us from? what was the purpose of that space? >> so we were in the lab, and we were looking backwards towards the russian segment. there's some exercise equipment off to the side. he was in there either running on a treadmill or we have an exercise machine that allows you to do bench press and squats. >> the u.s. laboratory. >> okay. the u.s. laboratory. he mentioned missing going outside. what would you do to avoid being stir crazy up there? >> it was funny. i think it was right after scott got there when samantha and i were there. i missed earth. the russians were sending up audio clips of rain and wind and birds and stuff, so there was one weekend where every laptop -- the station has 100 laptops. we put this rain sound. it was like raining in the station for the whole weekend. it was pretty cool. everywhere you went it just sounded like rain. that's one way to cope with it. >> mark, i talked with your brother about the twins' study. what is your role in the twins' study here on the ground, and how much time does it take? how often are you being tested and the like? >> so far my role has been to provide samples, blood, saliva, other things. i'm not going to go into. be there for mris and ultrasounds and even some experiments. sometimes i'll be laying in some kind of contraption. i don't know what they're trying to figure out. do whatever you need to do. so it's providing data over an extended period of time. sometimes i'll visit houston and meet with the researchers and spend a whole day giving data. sometimes they'll send somebody to tucson or even once to new york city to collect data from me. and we'll do this while my brother's in space, but i think also after he gets back for a period of time. from what we understand from some of these researchers, one of them recently said they're going to have more information on scott

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