Giffords' husband set to command NASA mission

By Todd Halvorson, Florida Today

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is married to Mark Kelly, a veteran astronaut who is scheduled to command the planned April 1 launch of Endeavour to the International Space Station.

The Endeavour crew aims to deliver a large cosmic ray detector that will be mounted outside the outpost.

NASA said that at the time of Saturday's shooting Kelly was "on personal, off-duty time."

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Giffords and Kelly, a Navy captain, were married in November 2007, and in the following year, Kelly, 46, became the first astronaut to fly in space while married to an active member of Congress.

Kelly also commanded NASA's second post-Columbia shuttle test flight in 2006. Kelly also piloted a space station crew rotation mission in 2001.

Kelly and his brother, Scott Kelly, also a Navy captain, became the first and only twins to be selected to the astronaut corps in April 1996. Scott Kelly currently is commander of the International Space Station.

NASA Chief Astronaut Peggy Whitson informed Scott Kelly of the shooting on a private space-to-ground communications channel shortly after the news broke.

Giffords, D-Ariz., is a member of the House space and aeronautics subcommittee and is an ardent supporter of NASA programs, particularly its human space flight program.

Giffords was a strong proponent of Project Constellation, the NASA return-to-the-moon program that was canceled by the Obama administration. She rallied against the idea of shifting the responsibility for launching astronauts into low Earth orbit to commercial companies that have yet to develop the means to do so.

Congress subsequently authorized NASA to proceed with investments in the development of commercial crew transportation while still funding a government-developed spacecraft — dubbed Orion — as a backup. NASA also was directed to design and develop a super-sized rocket that could launch the Orion on missions beyond Earth orbit.

Congress still must appropriate money for NASA's 2011 budget.