IN 2015, SCOTT KELLY set the record for the most days spent in space. During his time in orbit, Kelly documented the planet through a series of photographs titled Infinite Wonder. Currently he lives in Houston, Texas, but has spent his career as a military fighter pilot, an engineer, and now retired NASA astronaut. Kelly knows a thing or two about isolation, having been a part of four different space flights. In 1999, he helped upgrade new instruments and systems on the Hubble Space Telescope; in 2015, he spent a year at the International Space Station on a mission to research the effects of space on the human body. In the wake of shelter-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kelly told the New York Times, “I’ve seen humans work together to prevail over some of the toughest challenges imaginable, and I know we can prevail over this one if we all do our part and work together as a team.”
Launch to Landings, Oklahomans in Space will open in July 2020 at the Oklahoma History Center. The exhibition features a collection of historic NASA memorabilia with ties to the forty-sixth state.