‘A Year in Space’: Time’s video series follows Scott Kelly

BOTTOM LINE: A highflying adventure.

You don’t have to be a space buff to marvel at Time magazine’s “A Year in Space,” a video series that follows American astronaut Scott Kelly’s 340-day odyssey aboard the International Space Station. Kelly, who retired shortly after his landing in March, holds the record for the longest any American has been in space: 520 cumulative days. Then 51, Kelly launched from Star City, Russia — currently the only ride for American astronauts — with his yearlong companion, cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko (then 54). The veteran space travelers were selected by their respective countries as part of an experiment to see how the human body reacts to a long period in space. They traveled 143 million miles during their journey, about 3 million more miles than it would take for a man to reach Mars from Earth.

The story is broken up into 11 digestible segments, most of which are less than 15 minutes long. And, like watching the film “Apollo 13,” even though we know the outcome will be a safe one, there is still a feeling of urgency mixed with poignancy as we watch Kelly’s adventure.

If Kelly looks familiar, it is no surprise. He is the identical twin brother of fellow retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who was seen frequently in the press after his wife, former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was nearly killed in a 2011 assassination attempt.