The shootings in Tucson, Ariz., reached all the way to Houston. Locally-based NASA commander Mark Kelly was informed by a congressional staffer Saturday morning that his wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, (D-Ariz.) had been wounded in the grocery store shootings that so far have left six dead and several more wounded.

Giffords was reportedly shot in the head when a gunman opened fire outside of a Safeway grocery store where she was having a meeting with constituents.

Kelly boarded Landry's CEO Tilman Fertitta's private jet for transport to Tucson and he arrived at the hospital where his wife was undergoing surgery for a gunshot wound. She is in critical condition. Neurosurgeons reported in a news conference that they are "very optimistic" about her recovery.

The gunman, identified as 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner by the Associated Press, is in police custody. "We are not convinced he has acted alone," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said at a news conference Saturday night. Dupnik said authorities have a photograph of another individual believed to be involved in the shootings

Kelly and Giffords were married in November of 2007 in Amado, Ariz. The event was covered in the New York Times. It has been a commuter marriage with Giffords maintaining residences in Arizona and Washington D.C. where she was active in support of health care and immigration reform. She has chaired the House subcommittee that had jurisdiction over NASA.

Kelly is a three-time shuttle veteran who has been close friends with Fertitta for a number of years. Tilman and his wife, Paige, hosted a fundraiser for Giffords last year in their River Oaks home. Giffords and Kelly have been regulars at the Galveston Mardi Gras San Luis Salute, hosted each year by the Fertittas.

Kelly and Fertitta have been in contact throughout the day with Kelly expressing his exasperation at the earlier reports of his wife's death.