Mark Kelly: podcast appearances and interviews

Mark Edward Kelly, born on February 21, 1964, is an American politician and a retired astronaut and naval officer. He has served as the senior United States senator from Arizona since 2020. Kelly is a member of the Democratic Party and was elected to the Senate in a 2020 special election following the death of Senator John McCain. In the 2020 election, he defeated incumbent Republican Martha McSally, becoming the first Democrat to hold the seat since 1962; he was reelected for a full term in 2022. Kelly flew combat missions during the Gulf War as a naval aviator before being selected as a NASA Space Shuttle pilot in 1996. That same year, his identical twin brother Scott Kelly also became an astronaut. Mark Kelly's space missions include serving as pilot of STS-108 in 2001, pilot of STS-121 in 2006, and commander of STS-124 in 2008 and STS-134 in 2011, which was the final mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour. His wife, Gabby Giffords, a former Arizona Representative, was shot in an assassination attempt in 2011. Following his retirement from the Navy and NASA in 2011, Kelly and Giffords founded a nonprofit political action committee called Americans for Responsible Solutions, later merged into Giffords, which advocates for gun control measures such as universal background checks.