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[Ruby]

^^I watched the series. It was perhaps not as in depth as I was expecting, in terms of the psychological and physical effects of a year in space - a little bit sanitised IMHO. That's ok though - it still went into a fair amount of detail and it's interesting to see footage from Kazakstan - of Star City, and the Soyuz base - what a harsh environment. Scott Kelly is the US astronaut (Mikhail Kornienko the cosmonaut) and he has an identical twin brother, also an astronaut, so there would have been plenty of studies done on the differences a year on earth vs a year in space makes in each one which wasn't really gone into at all. (I read afterwards that his DNA changed by 7%.) You must have to be mentally extraordinarily tough to get through 340 days on board the ISS - the ultimate isolation. Aside from the obvious, they miss the simple things, like the smells of earth, opening a tap - being able to sit at a table to eat. There was also some old footage of the first ever space walk by Aleksey Leonov, and some comment from him. Those cosmonauts are revered and spoken of as heroic but by the looks of things don't receive any special treatment or compensation for their heroism - very modest accommodation, etc., on the surface, at any rate. Quite fascinating to see how Russia almost seems to be in a time warp in some respects. Worth a watch if this sort of thing appeals to you.