Today, astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko launched aboard a Soyuz rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrone to begin the most ambitious manned space mission in decades. They will spend a full year aboard the International Space Station, experiencing and studying the sometimes strange and even unpredictable effects of prolonged exposure to weightlessness, intense radiation, and the other unwelcoming conditions of life in outer space. Chris Jones spent three months reporting on Kelly's impending mission last year for his remarkable story "Away," which was published in the December issue. (Read that unforgettable account on Esquire Classics here.) Last week, Jones spoke with Kelly from Kazakhstan as he began his final preparations for launch.

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At 3:42 p.m. EST, in the middle of the Kazakh night, Scott Kelly felt the concussive weight of a controlled explosion set off under his back. Almost instantaneously, he was pressed into his custom-shaped Soyuz cradle, beside his two shuddering Russian crewmates, and slung toward the stars. His last taste of gravity for a year was one of our most extreme versions of it. A little more than eight minutes later, he was weightless.

Eight minutes. That's all that separates here from there, us from them.

Eight minutes. That's all that separates here from there, us from them. A Saturday Night Live skit. A walk across Times Square. The last three plays of a college basketball game. Eight minutes, and an unfathomable amount of liquid oxygen and kerosene, blessed by a sprinkling of holy water, courtesy of a bearded bear of a Russian priest. In some ways, that's all it takes.

Watch the livestream of the flight here:

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Of course, it takes so much more. It takes so much longer. A few days before Kelly's launch, a few days before he would start the longest mission in the history of American spaceflight—a few days before he began his journey to become the first astronaut to experience what it might be like to travel to Mars—he practiced the art of passing time. He was locked inside pre-launch quarantine in the low-slung Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the way he would soon be ensconced inside the International Space Station.

He had been careful to take stock of each one of his lasts. Before he flew from Houston to Star City, outside Moscow, in February, a farewell party was thrown for him at an astronaut hangout called Chelsea's. He was moved by how many people had come to wish him luck. He also went down to Galveston for a last day spent by the sea. "I thought it might be my last day in the sunshine," he said from Baikonur, where the last of the snow had just melted. He swam in the hotel pool, felt the sand under the feet that will soon be stripped of every callus.

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The stuff on my table in Baikonur 5 days before launch. #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/yhZas0E9FG — Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) March 22, 2015

Now he waited as the days counted down. It reminded him of his years as a Navy pilot, grounded while his aircraft carrier repositioned across oceans. "Eat till you're tired, sleep till you're hungry," he said the motto was then, and it was his motto again now.

As the week progressed his days became more full, with press conferences held behind germ-proof glass and final test fittings of that form-fitting Soyuz seat.

In between, he tried to occupy himself with long visits to the sauna and the less glamorous work required by the prospect of a year away. He'd made sure the electric company wouldn't turn off the power at his Houston home while he was gone. He'd confirmed with NASA the email address he would use while in orbit. He'd thought about the pack of personal items he'd have NASA ship up in June, what he might be craving a third of the way into his mission.

He had been given some time off in Star City, and he and his long-time girlfriend, Amiko Kauderer, had gone into Moscow to splurge on a five-star hotel. After their last night, he'd lifted out of bed and thought that he had just enjoyed the last of his deep sleeps. It wouldn't be long before he would be slipping into a sleeping bag hanging from one of the space station's walls. They had gone out for sushi and he'd realized halfway through his meal that something as simple as fresh fish would soon be a thing of his past. In Baikonur, his last shower was approaching. That was a big one: The last time he would be able to call himself clean.

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Enjoying a moment of solitude before my #YearInSpace. pic.twitter.com/JhLTlznTWy — Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) March 26, 2015

On Friday, he waved to Amiko, to his daughters, to his twin brother, Mark, through the windows of a bus that drove him to the launch pad, the same pad that Yuri Gagarin had launched from, the same pad that more than five hundred Russian rockets had baptized with fire. He had been working hard to lessen that moment. This is Kelly's fourth visit to space. He had gone twice on the shuttle, when we still had those, and once on the Soyuz. He had told himself over and over that he was doing what he'd always done. He was just doing it for a lot longer.

On his previous missions, "the goodbyes were probably not what you would expect," he said. "It felt like how you would feel if you were going on an extended business trip, with the exception of the whole getting in the rocket part."

He hoped the rocket part would receive more attention this time than it usually does these distracted days. "Not for me, but for NASA," he said. "The space station is one of the most incredible engineering achievements people have accomplished. Building this, doing it in this international partnership and doing it for so long, I think it's an even greater achievement than landing on the moon. I hope people recognize it."

One year in space. Who knows where that might lead? At 3:50 p.m. EST, Scott Kelly was eight minutes down. His journey had just begun, but he was long gone. And the rest of us might be well on our way.

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The business end of our rocket! Join the ride... #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/YBteaRCpKF — Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) March 26, 2015

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