dereliction of duty?

is Senator Kelly exhibiting a callous disregard for the safety of future astronauts?

I recently messaged Senator Kelly because a growing census is emerging about the viability of the planned first crewed mission to Mars. Given that the Senator is HIMSELF an EX-ASTRONAUT, surely there is no better qualified Congressperson to address these warnings, or at least that was my presumption before I received the following cringe-worthy dodge from his office:

Thank you for reaching out to the office of Senator Mark Kelly. We appreciate your engagement and interest in sharing your thoughts. Pursuant to Senate rules, we are only permitted to respond to Arizona constituents.

Sincerely,

The Office of Senator Mark Kelly

First, there is no such Senate rule that prohibits the Senator from responding to citizens who reside out-of-state. In fact, I did receive a reply some months ago to a previous message which belies your contention. By the way, that return message was callously dismissive, so much so that I postponed any follow-up until it occurred to me that a non-biased assessment rendered by AI would likely ratify my position -- and so it did. Just because the current President has kicked reasonable discourse to the curb doesn't make it OK for the Senator and/or his staff to follow suit. We are talking about a proposed expedition that is projected to cost $250 billion or more to execute. A 30 to 50+% probability of catastrophic mission failure is utterly unacceptable.

Mark Harris