Space for Navy Brothers

by Bill Doughty

U.S. Navy captain and astronaut Mark Kelly wrote this on his Facebook page last week. 

American Astronaut Scott Kelly set records in space in 2015 and 2016. 

"After 5,440 orbits around our planet, after the sun went up and down 10,944 times (the sun rises or sets every 45 minutes in space), after flying over 100 million miles, my brother Scott’s year in space is now over."

Kelly's twin brother Capt. Scott Kelly returned to Earth after 340 days and 400 investigations into how the body and mind adapt to being in space. Back on terra firma Mark served as a control for the experiments.

According to NASA, the studies will "advance NASA’s mission to reach new heights, reveal the unknown, and benefit all of humanity," to include an eventual journey to Mars.

Shortly after returning, Scott was optimistic about how humans could adapt to super-extended deployments in space.

"A year's a long time. I felt like I'd been up there my whole life after six months," Capt. Scott Kelly said. "I'm definitely encouraged on our ability to go even longer. Even though I looked forward to coming home, and there were things I missed, if it's for the right reason I clearly could have stayed for even longer ... however long it took."

Immediately after brother Scott's safe return Capt. Mark Kelly spoke on National Public Radio about the effects of radiation in space and theories of aging. Mark took part in his brother's journey, undergoing a twins study to evaluate and compare how the body changes.

Both brothers share a lifelong commitment to science, technology, engineering, mathematics, adventure and education.

Capt. Mark Kelly is reaching new generations of readers with his children's books, including "Mousetronaut," "Mousetronaut Goes to Mars" and his latest, with Martha Freeman, "Astrotwins: Project Blastoff."

"Astrotwins" (Simon & Schuster, 2016), published this month, is about middle schoolers getting ready to take off and is based on the childhoods of the Kelly brothers.

The Kellys were born on Orange, New Jersey on Feb. 21, 1964. They each officially retired from the Navy in recent years. While on active duty Scott served as a naval aviator with VFA-143 aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) and Mark flew for VA-115 in Atsugi, Japan and aboard USS Midway (CV 41).

On his Facebook site Capt. Mark Kelly recently posted a New York Times photo of Marine Corps Col. John Glenn's return to earth after Glenn's historic first orbit of the earth in 1962, just two years before Mark and Scott were born. (The twins were just five years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon). Imagine.

Mark Kelly reminds young readers in the afterword for "Mousetronaut" (Simon & Schuster, 2012) that it's been just 113 years ago that the Wright Brothers "launched the first manned airplane, the Flyer, and challenged the birds for a place in the skies."

Scott Kelly's journey is the latest in continuous innovation and collaboration in space.

According to NASA, "The space station’s orbital path over 90 percent of the Earth’s population provides a unique vantage point for studying and taking images of our planet. The one-year crew also saw the arrival of a new instrument to study the signature of dark matter to understand our solar system and beyond. Technology demonstrations conducted during the mission, such as a test of network capabilities for operating swarms of spacecraft, continue to drive innovation."

NASA shows that success is achieved by more than just one man or even one nation, considering the International Space Station and ongoing international cooperation.

Savannah Guthrie interviews the Kellys on the Today Show in May 2015.

Kelly blasted off from and returned to Kazakhstan aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft. He shared his mission with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, with whom he trained at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

NASA reports:

"The strong U.S.-Russian collaboration during the one-year mission is the latest accomplishment in 15 years of continuous global teamwork that shows how nations with widely divergent languages, cultures and engineering philosophies can advance shared goals in science and space exploration. Strengthening international partnerships will be key in taking humans deeper into the solar system."

The Write Stuff: 'Endurance'

Review by Bill Doughty

Scott Kelly, Christmas photo aboard ISS in 2010.

As a young man, future naval aviator, Navy captain and American astronaut, Scott Kelly was on his way to becoming a failure – unfocused, undisciplined and underwhelmed with the future. His only motivator was taking risks. Then he found a passion for a time as an EMT.

But the real ignition in his life came from a book: Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff." Kelly writes in his own book, "Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery" (Knopf/Borzoi 2017):

"I was captivated by the description of the Navy test pilots, young hotshots catapulting off aircraft carriers... This wasn't just an exciting adventure story. This was something more like a life plan. These young men, flying jets in the Navy, did a real job that existed in the real world. Some of them became astronauts, and that was a real job too. These were hard jobs to get, I understood, but some people did get them. It could be done. What drew me to these Navy pilots wasn't the idea of the 'right stuff' – a special quality these few brave men had – it was the idea of doing something immensely difficult, risking your life for it, and surviving. It was like a night run in the ambulance, but at the speed of sound. The adults around me who encouraged me to become a doctor thought I liked being an EMT because I liked taking people's blood pressure measurements, stabilizing broken bones, and helping people. But what I craved about the ambulance was the excitement, the difficulty, the risk. Here, in a book, I found something I'd thought I would never find: an ambition. I closed the book late that night a different person."

Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords meet Tom Wolfe in May 2016.

But then 18-year-old Scott had to turn ambition into action. As a college student he needed a boost from his twin brother, Mark, in the form of blunt advice: choose to study instead of party; aim for excellence. "That phone call with Mark was almost as pivotal a moment in my life as reading 'The Right Stuff.' The book had given me a vision of who I wanted to be; my brother's advice showed me how to get there."

Scott and Mark Kelly

Scott and Mark, who grew up in New Jersey, took separate and sometimes circuitous routes to becoming Navy pilots and astronauts, but their future seemed predestined. Their grandfathers were veterans of sea service in World War II, one serving on a destroyer in the Pacific and the other as a Merchant Marine officer. Scott and Mark were both attracted to service and adventure and the opportunity to make a difference.

In Scott's case he earned his U.S. Coast Guard license and participated in ROTC training on a Navy ship from California to Hawaii. With the ROTC he became acquainted with surface, submarine and SEAL training, but found his calling in naval aviation.

USS Eisenhower (CVN-69)

He describes landing on the training carrier USS Lexington (CV-16) and later on USS Eisenhower (CVN-69) in the Arabian Sea during Operation Desert Shield – on the outskirts of a sandstorm with low visibility. Scott boltered several times – failed to catch the arresting wire with his F-14's tailhook – before safely landing aboard Ike. He learned more about risk management and was reminded of "a saying in the Navy about mistakes: 'There are those who have and those who will.'"

With NASA, Scott enjoyed training with Russians, Germans and Japanese, finding value in diversity and gaining "a profound respect for scientific knowledge."

Much of "Endurance" is about Scott's life as an astronaut, of course, especially his 340 consecutive days in space on a mission considered vital to understanding the effects of living in space for an eventual mission to Mars. He calls the International Space Station "a foothold for our species in space." Toward that end, he participated in scientific studies with his identical twin brother, Mark, "at the genetic level."

Kelly and Obama.

Scott shows what it's like to: grow zinnias in space; live and work with Russians; tweet of speak with presidents, including Obama and Putin; eat burritos; watch CNN and the film 'Gravity'; urinate and draw blood; battle high levels of carbon dioxide; and listen to Pink Floyd, Jay-Z and Coldplay inside the ISS.

In space, Scott read Alfred Lansing's "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" about the Irish adventurer's exploration of the Antarctic. One of Shackleton's voyages was aboard the ship Endurance. Kelly chose "Endurance" as the name of his book, with the subtitle "A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery." (Interestingly, "Discovery" was the name of the ship Shackleton took on a voyage at the very beginning of the 20th century.)

Remembering Challenger: El Onizuka, Mike Smith, Christa McAuliffe,
Dick Scobee, Greg Jarvis, Judy Resnik and Ron McNair. (NASA)

Scott gives special tribute to the Columbia and Challenger tragedies, eulogizing the astronauts lost, including some close personal and professional friends. The reader gains an even greater appreciation for the bravery of the explorers of space and human endurance.

Throughout the book we go deep into some personal territory: Scott's divorce, his love for fiancé Amiko Kauderer, his bout with prostate cancer, and how he and Mark dealt with the tragic shooting of his sister-in-law, then Representative Gabby Giffords, and others in Tucson, Arizona. Scott was in space on January 8, 2011 when he received notice of the shooting. He was offered an opportunity to address the nation.

He said, in part:

"'These days, we are constantly reminded of the unspeakable acts of violence and damage we can inflict upon one another. Not just with our actions, but with our irresponsible words. We are better than this. We must do better. The crew of ISS Expedition Twenty-six and the flight control centers around the world would like to observe a moment of silence in honor of all the victims, which include my sister-in-law, Gabrielle Giffords, a caring and dedicated public servant...' Those of us who have had to privilege to look down on the Earth from space get the chance to take a larger perspective on the planet and the people who share it. I feel more strongly than ever that we must do better."

Scott shares what it's like to see Earth from space, including while on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station:

"The color and brilliance of the planet, sprawling out in every direction, are startling. I've seen the Earth from spacecraft windows countless times now, but the difference between seeing the planet from inside a spacecraft, through multiple layers of bulletproof glass, and seeing it from out here is like the difference between seeing a mountain from a car window and climbing the peak. My face is almost pressed against the thin layer of my clear plastic visor, my peripheral vision seemingly expanding out in every direction. I take in the stunning blue, the texture of the clouds, the varied landscapes of the planet, the glowing atmosphere edging on the horizon, a delicate sliver that makes all life on Earth possible. There is nothing but the black vacuum of the cosmos beyond."

Scott and Amiko

Toward the end of his nearly one year in space, Scott reflects on the "whole arc of my life that brought me here, and I always think about what it meant to me to read 'The Right Stuff' as a young man."

On "a quiet Saturday afternoon" passing over the Indian Ocean, Scott calls Tom Wolfe and talks about communication, books and writing, among other things. And Scott thanks him.

"Endurance" is a terrific biography of a quiet American hero. Kelly credits Margaret Lazarus Dean for assisting with the book. There are laugh-out-loud moments, especially about lost-in-translation Janglish on a dessert truck labeled "Marchen & Happy for You." There are private and sad passages. And there are inspiring keepsakes, like Amiko's advice: "Teamwork makes the dream work" – and this found haiku by Scott about what he learned in life:

I've learned that grass smells

great... wind feels amazing... rain

is a miracle

In an interview with "The Costco Connection" published this month Navy Captain (ret.) Scott Kelly discusses how his nearly year in space affected him. "I think it gives you more empathy for Earth and its inhabitants, and the planet itself, when you are detached from it for a long time. It definitely makes you appreciate everything Earth has to offer, which is everything. As humans, this is where we live and where we evolved, and everything is basically here. So not having most of that makes you definitely appreciate what we have – and what I have."

Reed Warrick gets a high five during his book signing at Costco in Kirkland, WA.
Phots by Kailan Manandic, courtesy Kirkland Reporter

We can imagine a young man or woman somewhere picking up this book and finding a path to purpose, endurance and discovery.

As Kelly says, "I would like people to think, whether they're younger or older, 'I can do more than I think I'm capable of. More than my experience base, education, background would let me think is possible.' ... You can always learn from your mistakes. You can always do better."

In his acknowledgements, Kelly thanks Amiko, Mark and other family members and professionals, and he concludes with: "And finally, I have to thank Tom Wolfe for his early inspiration. I truly believe if I had not read "The Right Stuff" as an eighteen-year-old, I would not have written this book or had the privilege of flying in space."

Enough Marches

Washington and Lafayette with the militia at Valley Forge. (Lib. of Congress)

Review by Bill Doughty

Fear of a standing army and navy prompted the Framers to draft the stilted wording and punctuation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution that called for citizens to arm themselves as part of civilian "well regulated militia." But after the Revolutionary War, when members of the militia were not compensated for their service, officers threatened to mutiny and march on Washington D.C. The mutiny was put down by George Washington himself. That was in March 1783 – 285 years ago this month.

Michael Waldman recounts the story in "The Second Amendment: A Biography" (Simon & Schuster, 2014), a good primer for anyone interested in how fear and paranoia of tyranny brought on a passion for firearms in the United States.

Waldman explores the meanings of "the right of the people," "the security of a free state," and "militia" in what it means to keep and bear arms and not infringing on that right.

Fear and paranoia have been potent weapons for decades in preventing legislation for sensible gun laws, according to Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly, authors of "Enough: Our Fight to Keep America Safe from Gun Violence" (Scribner, 2014), a personal but clear-eyed look at the issue.

Senator John McCain and General Stanley McChrystal both endorsed their book, with McChrystal calling the authors, "inspiring voices for responsibility. We need to listen."

Giffords and Kelly show how  "wannabe military" militia  try to look the part, speak in acronyms to sound cool, and align themselves with fundamentalist, white supremacist survivalists who, like the National Rifle Association, pose a real threat to society. The NRA is dangerous to citizens when they attack background checks, prohibit research into gun violence, and prevent voting on restrictions on armor-piercing bullets, ultra-capacity magazines, and assault-style military grade weapons, according to the authors.

Astronaut Capt. Kelly recounts his time in the Navy and having to lock his handgun in the Yokosuka base armory while he was stationed aboard USS Midway in 1990. "We tried to handle the deadly weapons of war with the utmost respect," he writes. Kelly lived off base, where firearms (and gun incidents) are unheard of. He fought – and dodged incoming fire as an F-14 fighter pilot in the Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm.

Both authors are gun owners who, even after Giffords was nearly assassinated by a gunman in 2011, shoot at ranges. Kelly is an avid hunter. Neither wants to do away with the Second Amendment. But they don't understand why the United States, which has only around one percent of the world's population of children, has 85 percent of the world's children deaths by guns.

"Enough" was one of the first words Giffords said after the senseless massacre of twenty young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut just before Christmas, 2012. This powerful book walks us through the preventable tragedies of Tucson, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Aurora and Newtown. The book was written before mass shootings and killings in Orlando, Las Vegas and, of course, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Lakeland, Florida last month.

Gun control was part of society in the 1800s, including in Tombstone and Dodge City. Laws have come and gone, depending on the fear-inducing power and intimidation of the NRA: The National Fire Arms Act of 1934 after an assassination attempt on FDR; The Gun Control Act of 1968 in the wake of assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK; the Brady Bill of 1993 after an attempted assassination of President Reagan; and the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 after a spike of violence.

In the mid-90s white identity fundamentalists at Waco, Ruby Ridge and Oklahoma City (Timothy McVeigh) fomented hate, fear and violence. McVeigh had been a member of the NRA and shared NRA leader Wayne LaPierre's "demonization of the ATF" (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives). In the wake of McVeigh's bombing of the Murrah federal building that killed 168 people, including children in the day-care center, and wounded more than 680 others, George H. W. Bush resigned his life membership in the NRA.

Domestic terrorism can still explode in our society. Witness the bombings this month in Austin, Texas. But the number of bombing incidents pales in comparison to mass shootings. Those who fear tyranny are causing a tyranny of violence. Navy Veteran Kelly rejects their paranoia, promoted by the NRA:

"The NRA has, in essence, turned the tables on the Declaration of Independence. Forget about a government designed to protect 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' Most of us trust our government: even if, sure, the average ninth grader can build a better website, we believe the men and women we elect to represent us have our best interest at heart. But to hear the NRA tell it, once federal or state governments start to pass laws to reduce gun violence in any way, shape, or form, it's a 'slippery slope' or 'jackbooted' federal agents banging on a gun owner's door to demand he turn over his firearm. As a Navy pilot who risked his life during bombing missions over Iraq and Kuwait, I find that preposterous and offensive. I was fighting to protect the ideals of a country and a government that I believed in. I blasted into space for my country, in a government-financed spaceship. The NRA'S slippery slope is a fantasy, and a dangerous one. If the NRA gets its way, we'll be left with a country where everyone is armed but no one is safe."

When Gabby Giffords was shot, the shooter was tackled while trying to reload. When a bystander grabbed the shooter's gun, the bystander was nearly shot by someone responding with a concealed weapon. In the chaos of a shooting, more guns may not be the answer. And in a peaceful society, more guns indiscriminately in hands of more people is not the answer, according to the authors.

As long as there are lax laws for background checks, mentally ill people, including paranoid conspiracy theorists, Islamist terrorists and other end-times believers, have relatively easy access to firearms in the United States.

The irony is that crazed assassins who want to become famous for killing a public figure can instead become famous for spurring responsible gun control regulations and legislation.



"March for Our Lives": Yesterday, an estimated 800,000 students, survivors and supporters marched in Washington D.C. and thousands more marched in more hundreds of cities across the United States in a call for positive change for safer schools and streets and sensible gun laws, including restrictions on offensive military style weapons designed to kill people rather than for hunting or defense.

Yolanda Renee King stands with Jackie Corin.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Jackie Corin said last week, "The people of America care," adding, "The love outweighs the hate, no matter what." Corin said she and other students are following the inspiration of "students during the Vietnam War era" as well as the nonviolent philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Corin stood with MLK's nine-year-old granddaughter Yolanda Renee King yesterday. King said, "My grandfather had a dream that his four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character," adding, "I have a dream that enough is enough."

David Hogg at March for Our Lives March 24, 2018.

Fellow student David Hogg, hoping for common ground in the debate, said, "People get afraid and then misunderstand people. We're not trying to take your guns; we're trying to save the future of America."

In Michael Waldman's Second Amendment "biography," which calls for focusing on the phrase "the right of the people," the author concludes this about gun violence:

"This is a remarkably dense and thorny issue. The controversy is thick with symbolic politics. It pits rural culture against urban norms. It asks us to avoid emotionalism, to rely more on research, to find policies that actually work. Efforts to enact sensible regulations of guns face many obstacles: powerful organizations, inflamed opponents, cowardly politicians, a media culture that (when not suffused with violence itself) quickly loses interest. To surmount these will require grit and wisdom. It should not have to require overcoming a hostile judiciary, misreading history, over-interpreting text, and imposing political views in the guise of judicial philosophy."

The burning of Washington D.C. in 1814 proved the weakness of relying on the states' militia.

After Waldman recounts venerated George Washington's role in preventing a march by a mutinous militia on Philadelphia, the nation's capital at the time, he tells how the militia service itself "withered."

In the War of 1812, the British overran state militias and they marched on Philadelphia, burning the White House. It was clear that a well-regulated and equipped military was needed more than a "well-regulated militia." Fear of a standing army and navy gradually gave way to a sense of confidence in the strength of a free democracy, relying on the people and their right to vote, being able to withstand a rise of tyranny, even from within.

Waldman reminds us of this quote from Abraham Lincoln while debating slavery and an earlier Supreme Court decision: "Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions."

Veterans Day Profiles in Courage

by Bill Doughty

JFK in WWII.

Like a lot of people in my generation I was fascinated by JFK’s heroism in World War II aboard PT-109.  (A Navy Reads review of Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage" is coming soon.) Kennedy was a naval officer who fought in the Second World War, just like former presidents and veterans George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford.  Each of them would have an aircraft carrier namesake.  Ford’s ultra-modern, ultra-efficient CVN-78 was christened this weekend. The next Kennedy carrier, CVN-79, is being built over the next 8 years.

The Kennedy family’s Profile in Courage Award, established in 1989, is presented annually to “the nation’s public servants who have withstood strong opposition to follow what they believe to be the right course of action.”  The award has gone to people like state representative Dan Ponder Jr. (R-GA), U.S. Congressman John P. Murtha (D-PA), U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), former U.S. Congressman Carl Elliot (D-AL), and most recently to former Arizona state representative and senator Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords of Americans for Responsible Solutions, formed with her husband former Navy Captain and astronaut Mark Kelly.  

In 2001, less than four months before 9/11, the Profile in Courage Award was presented to two statesmen: former President Gerald Ford and U.S. Representative John Lewis (D-GA), who went into harm’s way (and was severely injured) in a different kind of war -- for civil rights.  In the past week, “March: Book One,” a graphic nonfiction book about Lewis’s struggle, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was published and went to number one on a New York Times bestseller list.

The Kennedy award was presented to Ford for his courage in pardoning former President Richard Nixon after Nixon’s resignation in the face of the Watergate scandal.  Ford was known for his unimpeachable integrity.

In “Halsey’s Typhoon,” authors Drury and Clavin show how President Ford considered his wartime Navy experience in making the right decision for the good of the “ship of state.”

Veterans Day began as Armistice Day to mark the end of World War I. Fighting ended in that war Nov. 11, 1918, one year after JFK was born and three years after Gerald Ford was born.  President Woodrow Wilson called for Nov. 11 to be set aside: 

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice...”

In 1961 President Kennedy signed the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Commission bill, with former first lady Mrs. Wilson at his side.

At the signing Kennedy said, “I hope the Commission will plan a memorial that expresses the faith in democracy and President Wilson's vision of peace and a dedication to international understanding that President Wilson himself did so much to advance.  He called for a New Freedom at home, and a world of unity and peace, and we are still striving to achieve these objectives.”

The Profile in Courage Award is made of sterling silver and is designed by Edwin Schlossberg, crafted by Tiffany & Co., and inspired by the lantern on USS Constitution, the oldest commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy.  Read more about the award at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum site.