Former astronaut Mark Kelly on shortlist for Harris' VP pick

A well-dressed woman shakes hands with a bald man in a suit while a well-dressed woman looks on.

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut, is on Vice President Kamala Harris' shortlist to be her running mate as she pursues becoming the next president of the United States. If chosen, Kelly would become the first person who has flown into space to be on a ticket for the White House.

Harris is considering Mark Kelly to be her vice president alongside other candidates, including the governors of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Kelly has represented Arizona in the U.S. Senate since 2020, when he won a special election to complete the six-year term of John McCain, who died two years earlier. Kelly was reelected to a full term in 2022.

A former captain in the U.S. Navy, naval aviator and test pilot, Kelly became an astronaut with NASA's 1996 class of candidates, the same group that included his twin brother, Scott.

NASA astronaut Mark Kelly on the flight deck of the space shuttle Discovery during the STS-124 mission in June 2008.  (Image credit: NASA)