Mark Kelly Is a Possible VP Pick for Kamala Harris: How Could He Shape the Future of Space Policy?

24th Jul 2024
Mark Kelly Is a Possible VP Pick for Kamala Harris: How Could He Shape the Future of Space Policy?

Space and politics may have more in common than ever before. Current US Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is likely to replace President Biden in the 2024 elections, might pick a former NASA astronaut for VP. In such a case, how could this appointment influence the American space programme? Let’s figure out who Mark Kelly is and what his key statements are regarding science and space.

Who is Mark Kelly?

Mark Kelly is the 60-year-old junior senator from Arizona and a former NASA astronaut. He travelled to the International Space Station multiple times during the 2000s and early 2010s.

Before joining NASA, Kelly had a distinguished career in the U.S. Navy as an aviator. He flew combat missions during the Gulf War and accumulated over 5,000 flight hours in more than 50 different aircraft. Kelly ended up retiring in 2011 when his wife, then-congresswoman Gabby Giffords, was shot and nearly killed at a rally in Arizona. After retiring from NASA, Mark Kelly transitioned into politics. He was elected as the junior U.S. Senator from Arizona in 2020.

mark kelly
Credit: NASA

Kelly is also an author and public speaker. He has co-authored several books, including children’s books and memoirs about his and his brother’s experiences as astronauts (his twin brother, Scott Kelly, is also a retired NASA astronaut).

Will Mark Kelly start a golden age for the US space industry?

Mark Kelly isn’t the first astronaut to choose a political career. When he won a seat in the U.S. Senate, he became the fourth NASA astronaut to be elected to Congress.

Despite a bright career as a NASA astronaut, Mark Kelly focuses more on social issues rather than science and tech. As a senator, he focuses on issues such as tighter gun control legislation, healthcare, veterans’ affairs, and environmental protection. Still, there’s a possibility that Mark Kelly will make science and space programs one of the priorities, especially when paying attention to environmental policies here on Earth.

“We’ve seen this retreat from science and data and facts,” Kelly says in a video announcing his campaign launch. “If we don’t take these issues seriously, we can’t solve these problems.”

In the 2019 interview, he also said that “Science and data is at the root of most of the issues that we have to deal with, whether it’s border security, health care, climate, gun violence. I mean, you could continue to go down a list.”

“When I first looked down upon the Amazon rainforest in 2001, I saw vast areas of jungle and a wide and winding copper-colored river that went on and on and on,” Kelly continued. “A river that was impossible to miss and like no other on the planet. By 2011, however, the part that was most noticeable wasn’t the river or the jungle but the large swaths of empty land.”

He also criticized Trump’s initiative to create a military branch for space – Space Force – when it was first rolled out. “This is a dumb idea,” Kelly tweeted. “The Air Force does this already. That is their job. What’s next, we move submarines to the seventh branch and call it the ‘under-the-sea force?’”

Kelly is also a supporter of Mars exploration. Instead of focusing on Moon landing, colonisation and resources mining, Kelly said “We should just go straight to Mars. Forget about the Moon. We’ve been there. We’ve already done that.”

Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Related Articles

Explore Orbital Today