Astronaut Poised to Become Vice President Could Reverse Plans to Destroy the Space Station That He Helped Build

"As an astronaut, he will have a visceral understanding of how important" the station is.

ISS Veteran

Longtime NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, who's under consideration as running mate for vice president Kamala Harris's election bid, has a long history with the International Space Station.

In 2001, Kelly helped attach the European Raffaello Module to the ISS using the space shuttle's robotic arm, one of three segments that would later form the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module.

And Forbes raises an interesting point: while he has yet to publicly comment on NASA's plans to destroy the station in 2030, his close connections with the aging orbital outpost could bolster a growing movement opposing the plans, since NASA typically reports to the vice president.

It's a fascinating possibility of a Hail Mary for the decades-old lab, which could allow it to live on as a symbol of peaceful cooperation — instead of crashing back down to Earth, as currently planned.

Save Our Station

In an open letter published last month, former NASA administrator Michael Griffin and Jean-Jacques Dordain, who was the director general of the European Space Agency when the station was being built, argued that the ISS' life should be extended instead by boosting its circular orbit to a higher altitude.

That's instead of slowly pushing the station closer to the Earth's atmosphere and having it plummet into the Pacific Ocean. In June, NASA announced it had contracted SpaceX to develop a "US Deorbit Vehicle" to do just that, ending decades of peaceful international cooperation.

Now, as Forbes points out, Kelly could be poised to throw his considerable weight as a potential vice president behind the movement trying to dissuade space leaders from destroying the station.

"I love the idea that we might have an astronaut as VP," venture capitalist and commercial space station investor Rick Tumlinson, who is leading a movement called "Save Our Station," told Forbes. "As an astronaut, he will have a visceral understanding of how important it is" to safeguard the station.

Kelly has spent over 54 days in space across four different Space Shuttle missions between 2001 and 2011, the year he retired from NASA's astronaut corps. In 2015, his twin brother Scott, also a veteran NASA astronaut, broke the American record for most days spent in space (which was broken again last year by Frank Rubio).

According to Tumlinson, Mark Kelly's extensive experience would make him the perfect lead of the National Space Council, giving him plenty of leverage to oppose NASA's plans to destroy the ISS.

While we can only speculate as to where Kelly stands on those plans, having him in the White House could have major implications for NASA.

"There is a significant role that a president can play in the shaping of the space program," space historian Amy Foster told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. "And I think when we really look at the perspective of the vice president, they can be as powerful as well."

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