Mark Kelly’s Secret Weapon

In November 1969, Barry Goldwater, the Republican senator from Arizona, told reporters that he probably wouldn’t seek reelection. Once the Republican Party’s pick for president, Goldwater would leave big shoes to fill. And he already had a successor in mind: Frank Borman, an astronaut who, a year earlier, had flown to the moon and back on Apollo 8. Borman, who grew up in Arizona, wasn’t interested, and anyway, Goldwater ended up running again. But now, decades later, Congress is getting its Arizona astronaut.

Mark Kelly will join the Senate after defeating Senator Martha McSally in one of the most high-profile Senate races in the country. Kelly worked at NASA for 15 years, flying to space four times before retiring from the agency in 2011. Several years later, he was a test subject with his identical twin, Scott Kelly—an astronaut himself—in on the effects of of the past decade.