NASA Taps Astronaut for Longest US Space Mission

His twin brother may be the bigger household name, but that could change come 2015. Capt. Scott Kelly, who claims Mark Kelly and wife Gabby Giffords among his family members, is scheduled to blast off on a one-year mission to the International Space Station in the spring of that year. It'll be the first time an American has logged a full year or more in space (joining just four others who have managed the feat; the record is 438 days). He'll blast off from Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with Russia's Mikhail Kornienko, reports CNN.

"The one-year increment will expand the bounds of how we live and work in space and will increase our knowledge regarding the effects of microgravity on humans as we prepare for future missions beyond low-Earth orbit," said a NASA administrator. (More Scott Kelly stories.)