Quotes from Scott Kelly

It's an international space station. We have crew members from both the U.S. and Russia and now the United Kingdom with Tim Peake from the U.K... It's great to see that, on this space station, that we can work across cultures in a very cooperative way.

As far as the sounds on the space station, it's pumps, fans, motors, certain modules are louder than others, but it's generally a pretty nice working environment. It's not too loud or too smelly.

Something people don't recognize is that being on the space station is probably a lot like being in some kind of confinement - like isolation.

The space station here is a magical place and an incredible science facility.

We do a lot of science on the space station. Over the course of the year, there'll be 400 to 500 different investigations in all different kinds of disciplines. Some are related to improving life on earth in material science, physics, combustion science, earth sciences, medicine.

Leaving the space station was bittersweet - I had been there for a long time and looked forward to leaving, but it is a remarkable place.

I think a good life-work balance is important, and that's even more important in some cases on the space station.

I don't mean to say it's not fresh on the space station, but there's nothing like new, cold air coming into the capsule.

We've got to get rid of the stuff on the space station somehow. So we do have a pretty significant capability to bring back stuff on SpaceX that you might not imagine.

What we get from building a space station, the economic return, the science return, is very, very important to our nation, to our economy.

I don't think people have an appreciation for the work that it takes to pull these missions off, like humans living on the space station continuously for 15 years. It is a huge army of hard-working people to make it happen.

Going to Mars is a bunch of baby steps, and it started off with the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin.

I'm actually thinking about maybe, on a spacewalk, not wearing my glasses. I normally wear those both for reading and a little bit of a distance correction, but the distance vision seems like it's gotten a little bit better. So I might go without.

A lot of the data we collect is stuff that has to be analyzed on the ground. For instance, we can't see, you know, bone loss. Our cells, you know, that's something that we'll have to notice with imaging technology when I get back.

It's a combination of science, maintenance, and general housekeeping. And then, occasionally, robotics activities or a spacewalk you might get to do.

I am not a great sleeper. I don't think I have ever slept 8 hours straight in the last 20 years.

By going to Mars one day, we will make things better for us here on Earth.

The calluses on your feet in space will eventually fall off. So, the bottoms of your feet become very soft like newborn baby feet. But the top of my feet develop rough alligator skin because I use the top of my feet to get around here on space station when using foot rails.

The thing I like most about flying in space is not the view. The thing I like about it is doing something I feel very, very strongly about.

The Earth is a beautiful planet. The space station is a great vantage point to observe it and share our planet in pictures. It makes you more of an environmentalist.

This is a really big space station. We do a lot of various kinds of work here, different kinds of science experiments; we have over 400 different experiments going on at any one time in different areas, from basic science research to medical technology, that hopefully will benefit more people on Earth.

Space has its own unique smell. So whenever a vehicle docks, or if guys are out doing a spacewalk, the smell of space when you open up the hatch is very distinct. It's kind of like a burning-metal smell, if you can imagine what that would smell like.

Adjusting to space is easier than adjusting to Earth for me.

As far as whether there is life there on Mars or whether there was actually ever life there, I don't know. It would be great to find out, though.