Inside Giffords' Marriage to Astronaut Mark Kelly

Their 2007 wedding was featured in 'New York Times'
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 8, 2011 2:43 PM CST
Gabrielle Giffords' Husband Is Astronaut Mark Kelly
Space shuttle Discovery commander Mark Kelly, right, talks with NASA officials after landing at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 2008.   (AP Photo/Pierre DuCharme, Pool)

The husband of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, shot today in Arizona, is NASA astronaut Mark Kelly. He's flown on three shuttle flights and is scheduled to go up on Endeavour's final mission on April 1, reports Space.com. His brother, Scott, also is an astronaut and is currently living aboard the International Space Station. Kelly and Giffords married in 2007 and were featured in the New York Times' Vows column. It quotes guest Robert Reich as saying that "Frank Capra would have had a field day with the life of Gabrielle Giffords."

The two met in China as members of a young leaders group on US-China relations. “I had dated some big players, but they weren’t really nice men, and I was a little gun-shy," Giffords recalled for the column. "Mark talked about his love for his two daughters, about sharing custody.” And it quotes Kelly about his wife: “She had it all. Beautiful, smart, hard working, balanced, fun to be with, and she laughed at my jokes.” (More Gabrielle Giffords stories.)

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