Trego's Mountain Ear

I don’t follow politics especially closely, and I’m seldom acquainted with the state level politics of anywhere far from home. So it was a bit of a surprise, when Mark Kelly came up as a possible VIP pick for Harris, that it wasn’t just a name I knew, but someone I had actually heard speak.

I’d say I don’t have anything against Mark Kelly, except that it wouldn’t be true. It would, however, be fair to say that it wasn’t precisely his fault. My university had taken to pulling in speakers from various places and advertising them. This was mostly uninteresting, right up until the signs said they were bringing in an astronaut.

This was around the time I’d discovered NASA had someone doing videos about daily life in space (how do you drink tea in space? Eat a sandwich? Use a toilet?). I was taking astronomy at the time, and I’d always thought space was cool, so, an astronaut? Several steps above the usual college speaker.

It was a very crowded auditorium. Everyone else had seen the signs about the astronaut too. So I went, hoping to at least hear stories about life in space. Mark Kelly was the half of a twin study that went to space, and NASA does some neat stuff.

It was, to be fair, not Mark Kelly’s fault that the university sold the attendees on “astronaut” when what he intended to deliver was “politician”. It was still the most disappointing college talk I attended.

I really didn’t have anything against the man personally, though I wasn’t thrilled with his stances on gun control, but I hadn’t come to hear about them. We had an astronaut on campus. He spent more time talking about gun control than outer space.

Most disappointing astronaut ever.