Twin Fools NASA: Mark Kelly Shaves Mustache, Impersonates Brother Scott

Scott Kelly's twin fooled NASA personnel Friday when he showed up to his brother's launch sans his signature facial hair.

Mark Kelly, the husband of retired Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, shaved off his mustache — a distinguishing feature between the two twins, for many — to trick NASA honchos into thinking he was Scott, according to The Associated Press.

Scott Kelly, at the time, was in Kazakhstan prepping to blast off with Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka on a one-year International Space Station mission, according to NASA.

"He fooled all of us," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told the AP when he first saw Mark Kelly, thinking he was Scott, who should have been on the launching pad. "(The mustache was) the only way I can tell you two apart."

Scott and Mark Kelly are part of NASA's historic Twins Study, which will examine the effects of space on Scott Kelly vs. Mark Kelly on Earth for a one-year period. The study is widely seen as a precursor for a manned mission to Mars.

The Twins Study experiments will tackle a range of topics, including changes in the brothers' physiology and shifts in behavior, such as decision-making and alertness, according to People.

"I'm already being poked and prodded every which way while we do all of the preliminary testing leading up to the big launch," Mark Kelly told the magazine in February.

"Hopefully, this will advance our knowledge of what happens when people leave the planet for a long time and help pave the way for sending Americans beyond low-earth orbit," he continued. "There are a lot of exciting destinations in the universe, some not too far away. This mission is another step toward them."

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