General Discussion

“Mark is such a strong character. Anybody who gets shot into space is braver than a bullfighter. There’s no one braver than an astronaut because you don’t know what will happen to you. And he had this strong military background [as] a fighter pilot. Mark even looks pugnacious.

“But what’s lost about that is the warmer and human side of Mark, the man who loves a joke and has a sense of humor and doesn’t mind cleaning up after lunch and taking out the garbage. I guess he even does that up in outer space.”

When the president called Kelly a “traitor” and said Kelly “should be hung,” Helm-Estabrooks said, her adult children expressed no concern for Kelly; rather the reverse. “The kids said that from what they’ve seen, the message should be “Don’t [expletive] with Mark Kelly.”