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Mark Kelly is aware of a factor or two about flying excessive—each actually and in any other case. As a NASA astronaut, he was a part of 4 house shuttle missions between 2001 and 2011, amassing greater than 54 days in house and overlaying greater than 22 million miles. Now he is a Senator from Arizona who’s on the quick listing to be Vice President Kamala Harris’ working mate. Political handicappers have Kelly sharing the within observe for the veepstakes with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Kelly backers are citing his house background as a cause Harris ought to decide him. Nothing is cooler than an astronaut on the poll, they argue. But time in house on a resume has by no means been a surefire winner with American voters. Three different NASA astronauts have run for—and received—excessive workplace, and two others tried and fizzled earlier than reaching electoral orbit.
Far and away, probably the most profitable astro-politico to this point was Ohio Democrat John Glenn, who turned the primary American to orbit the Earth earlier than serving 4 phrases within the U.S. Senate. Glenn endured serial launch scrubs earlier than lastly getting off the bottom on Feb. 20, 1962, and his electoral profession had related false begins.
After his first mission to house made him a nationwide celebrity, Glenn was quietly pulled from NASA’s flight rotation when President John Kennedy determined that the U.S. couldn’t threat his life once more. Chafing on the function of ground-pounder, Glenn resigned from NASA in 1964 and retired from the Marine Corps in the identical yr, together with his cap set for the Senate.
Barely a month into his first marketing campaign, nonetheless, he took a fall in an empty resort bathtub whereas making an attempt to restore a mirror, struggling a concussion and interior ear injury that docs warned him would require at the least a yr of relaxation and restoration. Glenn pulled the plug on that marketing campaign. He tried for the Senate once more in 1970, shedding within the major to Cleveland businessman Howard Metzenbaum, who in the end misplaced within the normal election.
In 1974, Metzenbaum and Glenn confronted off once more, and this time, after a decade of making an attempt, Glenn ultimately prevailed. He was helped in no small measure by a flagrant case of political malpractice, when Metzenbaum accused the astronaut and battle hero of by no means having held an actual job. At their subsequent debate, Glenn recited his service in each World War II and Korea and his 149 fight missions—together with invoking the deaths of males much less lucky than himself, together with astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, who misplaced their lives within the January 27, 1967 Apollo 1 launch pad hearth. He adopted this with a rhetorical blowtorch:
“You stand there, and you consider this nation, and also you inform me that these individuals did not have a job. I’ll let you know, Howard Metzenbaum, you have to be in your knees daily of your life thanking God that there have been some males—some males—who held a job. And they required a dedication to function and a love of nation and a dedication to obligation that was extra vital than life itself. And their self-sacrifice is what made this nation doable. I’ve held a job, Howard!”
Glenn throttled Metzenbaum within the major, with greater than 56% of the vote, and romped within the normal election over Cleveland’s Republican Mayor Ralph J. Perk.
Over his 24 years within the Senate, Glenn served as Chairman of the Committee on Government Affairs and as a member of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, and took part in additional than 9,500 roll name votes. But his profession was not with out its blemishes. In 1984, he joined a crowded area of Democrats taking up the suicide mission of working for his or her party’s presidential nomination to problem the immensely well-liked Ronald Reagan. Glenn completed fifth in Iowa and close to the again of the pack in New Hampshire and on Super Tuesday and was out of the race by March. Former Vice President Walter Mondale, earned the doubtful honor of profitable the Democratic nomination—and went on to lose 49 states to Reagan.
In 1989, Glenn turned embroiled within the so-called Keating Five scandal, when he and 4 different lawmakers appeared to intervene with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board on behalf of marketing campaign contributor and financial savings and mortgage proprietor Charles Keating. A Senate Ethics Committee concluded that Glenn had exercised poor judgment however had dedicated no wrongdoing.
Nonetheless, he ran for and received a fourth time period within the Senate in 1992, earlier than deciding to retire on the finish of that time period. In a dialog I had with him within the fall of 1998, he mentioned there was a lot he would miss concerning the Senate, however not the ritualized humiliation of fixed fundraising, which he described as “a stinking, depressing strategy to run your life.”
On Oct. 29, 1998, whereas nonetheless a sitting senator, Glenn capped his profession with a second journey to orbit, aboard the house shuttle Discovery. At 77, he was—and stays—the oldest particular person ever to fly in house.
Harrison Schmitt didn’t have almost the storied political profession Glenn loved. A geologist and astronaut, he turned the twelfth out of 12 males to set foot on the moon, serving as lunar module pilot aboard the Apollo 17 mission in December of 1972. In 1976, he ran as a Republican for a Senate seat in New Mexico, simply profitable his major battle towards a little-known rival, and trouncing Democratic incumbent Joseph Montoya, profitable 24 of the state’s 32 counties.
But the nice instances have been short-lived for Schmitt. After only a single time period within the higher chamber, throughout which he chaired the Science, Technology and Space Subcommittee, he misplaced reelection to State Attorney General Jeff Bingaman, who charged that Schmitt had didn’t attend to the wants of New Mexicans, and campaigned on the pointed slogan, “What on Earth has he accomplished for you latterly?” Not sufficient, the voters determined, turning Schmitt out by a margin of 54% to 46%.
For Jack Swigert, issues have been even tougher, as dangerous luck stalked his profession—each of his careers, truly. In 1970, he served as command module pilot aboard Apollo 13—the mission that was aborted when an explosion crippled the mom ship 200,000 miles from house and almost value the crew their lives. Swigert and crewmates Jim Lovell and Fred Haise escaped with their skins, and in 1978, Swigert ran for a U.S. Senate seat from Colorado, however was defeated within the major.
In 1982, Colorado was awarded a sixth Congressional district—one which included Swigert’s Denver house. He ran for the seat, however throughout the marketing campaign he was identified with bone most cancers—which was made public, alongside together with his docs’ prognosis that the illness was beatable. It wasn’t. Swigert received, however on December 27, one week to the day earlier than he would have been sworn in, he died. Today, a statue of Swigert in his Apollo 13 spacesuit, his helmet held jauntily by his facet, stands in Denver International Airport.
Two different astronauts—Jack Lousma, who flew aboard Skylab and within the shuttle program, and Jose Hernandez, one other shuttle astronaut—ran for the Senate and the House respectively. Both misplaced, and each retired from politics after that.
Space and politics are high-stakes ventures with steep odds of constructing the skilled lower. Mark Kelly is aware of that at the least in addition to any of the individuals who preceded him in each fields. If Harris picks him they usually win in November, Kelly may have risen increased than some other astronaut-turned-politician in American historical past. If he misses out on the veepstakes, the favored lawmaker who received his 2022 race by a cushty 51.4% to 46.5% margin, at the least has his senate seat to maintain him heat.
