Astronaut, cosmonaut welcomed home by family, apple pie, beer after 340 days in space
Two space explorers are back home with their families after spending nearly a year in space.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned to Earth from their 340-day mission on the International Space Station, landing in a remote part of Kazakhstan on Wednesday, local time.
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On Thursday, Kelly and Kornienko were welcomed home with smiles, congratulations and even apple pie by dignitaries and family members in Houston, Texas and Star City, Russia respectively.
In Houston, Kelly was greeted by Jill Biden, NASA administrator Charles Bolden and John Holdren, President Obama's science advisor, when his plane landed in the wee hours of Thursday morning.
Biden said she brought Kelly some beer and apple pie as a welcome home gift, during a speech after Kelly touched down at Ellington Field.
Kelly, as he said he would before leaving space, jumped into his pool after getting home to Houston.
"Oh man, that feels good," Kelly said in a video of the plunge he posted to Twitter Thursday.
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"It's just an unbelievable feeling to be back here on planet Earth," Kelly said during a speech when he got off the plane in Houston.
"I want to recognize my girlfriend and partner Amiko [Kauderer], here, that's been in lock step with me the whole time during this whole experience."
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Kelly's daughters, his twin brother Mark Kelly and Mark's wife, former congresswoman Gabby Giffords were also on hand for Kelly's homecoming.
Kelly took a congratulatory call from President Barack Obama during his trip from Kazakhstan to Houston.
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Kornienko was also celebrated as he came back home to Russia.
One particularly sweet photo shows him greeting his wife at an airport in Star City.
Kelly and Kornienko appear to have gotten close during their history-making mission on the Space Station.
"He's a great guy," Kelly said of Kornienko in a post-landing interview.
This mission marks the longest single Space Station mission yet, and Kelly is now the NASA astronaut who has spent the most amount of time in space with 520 days over the course of four spaceflights.
Kornienko and Kelly undertook the nearly yearlong mission in order to gather data that may one day help humans get to Mars.
Scientists are planning to use data gathered before, during and after the mission to learn more about how the human body reacts to long duration stays in orbit.
This research may help mitigate any negative side effects of spaceflight astronauts could experience on a more than yearlong mission to and from the red planet or other more distant destinations in the solar system.
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pierson.
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Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
