ISS: Crew celebrates 15 years of continuous human life in space

The members of Expedition 45 celebrated 15 years of continuos human habitation of the International Space Station (ISS) during a news conference held aboard the ISS on Monday. Station Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren of NASA, Flight Engineers Mikhail Kornienko, Oleg Kononenko and Sergei Volkov of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Japanese Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui answered questions from media around the world on the work conducted in space since continuos human habitation at the ISS began on November 2, 2000. Kjell Lindgren talked about the importance of the experiments conducted onboard the ISS regarding human missions to Mars, saying that many of those experiments were "critical to our understanding of how human physiology adapts to this micro-gravity environment ... and the things that we need to do to protect human health for a long trip to Mars with respect to muscle, bone, immune system and health." Oleg Kononenko is planned to return to earth on December 22.