ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 5, 1996 TAG: 9605070011
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: JACKIE SPINNER THE WASHINGTON POST
IDENTICAL DREAMS can come true. NASA has selected both men to train as shuttle pilots.
On a hot Sunday in July 1969, two 5-year-old brothers sat on their living room floor in New Jersey watching television and shared the same dream to touch the stars.
At the moment Neil Armstrong took a step on the dusty moon, Mark and Scott Kelly decided they were going to be astronauts. Both of them.
This week, NASA made it official.
The 32-year-old identical twins, both fighter pilots at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Southern Maryland, were the first twins - and first siblings - selected as astronauts in NASA's history.
``It's one of the ultimate things to do in aviation,'' said Mark Kelly, an instructor pilot for the Navy's test pilot school. Scott Kelly is a test pilot for the Strike Aircraft Test Squadron.
More than 2,400 people applied to become astronauts this year. Of the 35 selected, 10 of them, including the Kelly brothers, were selected to be shuttle pilots. The rest will train to be mission specialists.
``It's an honor,'' said Mark Kelly, who is six minutes older.
``To have the chance,'' his brother finished for him.
They actually talk like this, and Friday, in their white Navy uniforms, it was difficult to tell them apart.
``They have the same chins, the same earlobes, the same lips,'' said Richard Kelly, their father. ``Sometimes, Mark's more serious, and then it's Scott who's the one. I can't describe the differences.''
Imagine the difficulties for NASA.
``We all have a badge,'' said Duane Ross, manager of NASA's astronaut selection office. ``We'll just have to hope they don't change their badges.''
They looked so much alike during their NASA interviews, Ross said, that when the second brother walked in, ``I said, `Hey, we already interviewed this guy.'''
Mark Kelly was interviewed first and wore his brother's suit. When Scott Kelly was called for an interview about a month later, he tried to get his brother to buy him a new suit. No dice. Scott had to wear the suit again.
``I had to go in a recycled suit,'' Scott Kelly said. ``I told them when I went in, `If you think you've seen me before, it's the suit.'''
From the time they were little boys in their home town of West Orange, N.J., the Kelly brothers pretty much walked the same path, although not always at the same time. They were both captains of the same high school swim team. They went to separate colleges but both studied engineering. Both became Navy pilots, which both credit for their selection into the space program.
When the twins entered the Naval Test Pilot School in 1993, it was the first time they'd been stationed together in the past decade. Scott Kelly was flying in Virginia Beach and his brother was in graduate school in California.
But for the past three years, the brothers have lived about five miles from each other in Lexington Park, about 60 miles south of Washington in St. Mary's County. They have baby daughters, three months apart, who look like twins themselves.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Thirty-two-year-old twins Scott Kelly (left) andby CNBMark Kelly will join NASA's Astronaut Class of 1996.