Too Late for Gemini Flights, Twins Picked as Shuttle Pilots

On a hot Sunday in July 1969, 5-year-old identical twins sitting on their living room floor and watching television shared a dream to touch the stars.

At the moment Neil Armstrong took humankind’s first 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 from New Jersey, 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 is a test pilot for the Strike Aircraft Test Squadron.

More than 2,400 people applied to be astronauts this year. Of the 35 selected, 10 of them, including the Kelly brothers, were selected to be shuttle pilots. The rest will train as mission specialists.

“It’s an honor . . ,” said Mark, who is six minutes older. “. . . To have the chance,” his brother finished for him.

They actually talk like that, and in their white Navy uniforms Friday, it was difficult to tell them apart.

They looked so much alike during their NASA interviews that when the second brother walked in, “I said, ‘Hey, we already interviewed this guy,’ ” said Duane Ross, manager of NASA’s astronaut selection office.

Both brothers said they simply consider it a bonus that the other was chosen, although they aren’t likely to fly together in space at first because NASA usually pairs an experienced shuttle pilot with a new pilot.

“If one of us got selected and the other one didn’t . . ,” Mark began. “If he got accepted, I would probably be the second-happiest person in the world,” Scott said.