Watch him on CultureMap tonight

Astronaut Scott Kelly wants you to know that Space City isn't dead: Houston'sstill rocket vital

Scott Kelly
A Russian Soyuz

Photo via Wired UK

Astronaut Scott Kelly is looking forward to talking some football Monday night when he goes on Not Your Ordinary Sports Show, the debut show of the new online sports TV network that Houston Texans right tackle Eric Winston's starting. After all, this is a Northern New Jersey native who largely gave up his allegiance to the New York Giants once the Texans came along.

Just imagine how that went over with his Jersey friends. Kelly has some strong, unconventional opinions on football.

But Kelly figures the show will probably also veer into space at some point. Winston has a major interest in the subject (the NFL player once had Kelly phone in from space to his radio show). And Kelly believes there's a lot that needs to be said too, starting with debunking the notion that Houston is no longer in the space business.

"There are a lot of misconceptions out there about where we are as a space program," Kelly tells CultureMap. "There's the misconception that because the space shuttle program ended, everything's done. We still have a flight program. We're still going into space."

It clearly pains Kelly to hear people say that Houston should no longer be dubbed Space City, that the city's title should change with the times now that the space shuttles are retired and Houston was snubbed from even getting one of those. When asked if he's surprised to see an NFL player showing an interest in space exploration, he nearly bristles at the notion that anyone in Houston wouldn't be interested in space.

"Well, he does play for the Houston Texans," Kelly says. "In the birthplace of space flight in America. The first word spoken from the moon was Houston."

(When Apollo 11's Lunar Module touched down on the moon, Neil Armstrong radioed in, "Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.")

Kelly — the 47-year-old twin brother of fellow astronaut Mark Kelly, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' husband — believes the idea that the American public's interest in space has waned is another misconception, one he must fight. "A lot of people are interested in it," he says. "They're just misinformed on what the retirement of the space shuttle fleet really means. They've been led to believe we're done."

NASA is still sending astronauts into space on Russian Soyuzes. Kelly's been on a Soyuz and to him, any ride into space is a good one.

"It's different than the shuttle," he says. "It's a lot smaller than the shuttle. Soyuz is more the classical rocket. It's liquid fueled." Kelly explains the Soyuz ride is much more bumpy than a space shuttle ride, but that he doesn't necessarily prefer one over the other. "It's just a different trip," he says.

There aren't many people in the world who've been on both a space shuttle and a Soyuz. This one just happens to be a football fan. With the emphasis on fan.

"It's different than the shuttle," Kelly says. "It's a lot smaller than the shuttle. Soyuz is more the classical rocket. It's liquid fueled."

"I played Pop Warner," Kelly says. "But I gave up football in middle school, once I realized, I stink at it."

When the Texans first started as a franchise, this converted Houstonian found himself becoming a fan. Which surprised him more than a little.

"I never really got into the Oilers at all," he says. "But something about the Texans, maybe it's being there from the beginning, I was a fan from their first game."

On tonight's Not Your Ordinary Show (which will be shown live in the video module on the front page of CultureMap), Kelly will find himself sitting around a table with an offensive tackle he considers a friend, a former Olympic speed skater (Chad Hedrick) and a PGA Tour veteran whose something of a cult figure for his off-the-cuff appearances on the national Jim Rome Show (Steve Elkington). Not Your Ordinary Sports Show is designed for people to watch as a companion piece to Monday Night Football. The idea is to turn on the game, turn off the sound and pull up the broadcast of Not Your Ordinary Sports Show on a computer or smartphone, and listen to Winston and his high-profile Houston guests as they watch the game and riff on whatever comes to mind.

Kelly is only non-sports guest on the debut show, but that's part of what excites Winston about the show. Hedrick isn't sure the show could work anywhere but Houston.

"If you think about it, Houston is a big city that acts like a small city," Hedrick says. "There's a real sense of community you don't get in a lot of major cities. I don't know that you could get all these different type of guests to come together and watch a football game on TV in another city."

Kelly doesn't plan to go on and defer to the pro athletes. "I've been known to speak my mind," he laughs. Watch out for the astronaut.

For more on Not Your Ordinary Sports Show, you can go to website of Winston's new network dubbed THEBUS (it's pronounced Thee-bis). And remember, you can watch the first show live on CultureMap Monday night at 6. Read CultureMap's exclusive story on what drove Winston to start the network here.

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ask the cm three

Introducing CultureMap Houston's new advice column for navigating life

Photo by A server at 1111

Eric Sandler, Emily Cotton, and Brianna McClane want to give you advice.

Introducing CultureMap Houston’s latest initiative in reader engagement and better living. “Ask the CM Three” is a new advice column from CultureMap city editor Eric Sandler (aka me), home and design contributor Emily Cotton, and jack-of-all-trades writer Brianna McClane.

The premise is simple. Over the last year or so, the three of us have become good friends. We like helping each other think through our problems and feel like readers might appreciate our perspective on how to confront the challenges of life in Houston.

Also, if we’re being honest, advice columns are incredibly fun to read. Being exposed to other people’s problems makes our own difficulties seem a little less onerous. It’s the same sort of schadenfreude that makes articles about restaurant closures so reliably popular.

Sure, readers could submit the obvious stuff (via this Google Form). Ask Sandler for a new restaurant for date night, Cotton for tips on scoping out estate sales, or McClane for how she’s balancing working from home with school being out for the summer. But we’re hoping to be challenged with questions where we disagree — what happens when Sandler’s Gen X indifference runs into McClane and Cotton’s Millennial enthusiasm?

To explain the idea in more detail, the three of us sat down for drinks at Bar Madonna. If the overall tone seems loose, well, we were into at least our second round of cocktails before we turned the recorder on.

Eric Sandler: This was your idea, Brianna — why do you want to start writing an advice column?

Brianna McClane: I've read Dear Abby since I was a child. Since then, I've devoured advice columns from The Washington Post, The New York Times, and plenty of others. My parents are pastors, so I grew up hearing everyone's problems and listening to the advice they gave. Looking back, I think that's one reason I love advice columns.

Even if the advice isn't for you, you can still learn something from it. And if you don't, you're at least getting to enjoy someone else's drama. One of my favorite parts is when advice columns get shared on social media. I'll always scroll through the comments to see what everyone else thinks.

Emily Cotton: I religiously read The Ethicist in The New York Times. It's written by an NYU philosophy professor, and I don't always agree with him, which is part of the fun.

Our parents used to have people over for poker night — or Rook, in my house. We'd be watching "TGIF" or the NBA Finals while our parents played cards with neighbors and coworkers, and we'd overhear who was feuding with whom or which neighbor had a new scandal.

I feel like this current younger generation didn’t get to live like that — they're more apt to be “blue-light-glasses voyeurs.” They're reading it on their phones, whether it's an advice column, Instagram, or Reddit. Maybe this bridges that generational gap. Older people lived it, younger people still want it.

BM: That's a good point. It seems to me that just a few years ago, people were much more likely to ask for opinions and advice on social media. Now it's easy to ask ChatGPT instead. But advice isn't always about finding an answer — sometimes it's about connecting with another person who's been through something similar.

EC: There’s a difference between exchanging knowledge and exchanging opinions. Let's be real specific here. I don't listen to just any knowledge anyone wants to share with me. I want it to be cited. I want it to be somewhat peer reviewed.

ES: I am with you on the New York Times columns, Emily. I'll read Ask a Manager, Work Friend, and Social Q’s pretty regularly.

Houston's a big, complicated city. If you read CultureMap, we'll tell you what's going on, but we don't offer a lot of opinions and we don't really rank things. People know us — or at least feel like they know us — from reading our work. I think there's some curiosity about what we think.

ES: All right, so what kind of questions are we looking for? Do we want relationships? Parenting?

EC: I would say all of the above. At the end of the day, this is about people reaching out to other people. Think of us as your unbiased friends who'll tell you what you need to hear.

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Got a relationship dilemma? Workplace conflict? Parenting question? Family drama? We want to hear it. Submit your questions anonymously through this Google Form, and Eric, Emily, and Brianna may answer them in an upcoming installment of Ask The CM Three.

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