Mark was the one who commanded the final mission of the space shuttle Endeavor in 2011. Gabrielle Giffords, Mark’s wife, was severely injured in a shooting in Tucson, Arizona, in January 2011. Mark then retired from NASA later that year to be with his wife during her extensive recovery and to spend more quality time with his family.
Scott will be busy setting a world record for the longest space mission by any NASA astronaut, but there will still be time to oversee some investigations into how the twins’ bodies react to their different environments.
As of right now, NASA is soliciting ideas for a variety of ways to test the twins with a
call for proposal titled “Differential Effects on Homozygous Twin Astronauts Associated with Differences in Exposure to Spaceflight Factors."
The plan includes collecting blood samples; however, any other tests must not interfere with Scott’s duties while on the ISS.
The NASA release
says:
"Proposed investigations should focus on the analysis of human molecular responses to the physical, physiological, and environmental stressors associated with human spaceflight."
This study is supposed to help NASA gain a much better understanding of
how space flight affects the body, and work toward finding ways to reduce risks to humans while in space.
The proposals for this study are due by September 17, so there is still time for researchers to get in on this study.
