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Mark Kelly, the former NASA astronaut who commanded the second-to-last space shuttle mission and spent 25 years in the Navy, readily acknowledges the myriad threats China poses to the U.S. Earlier this month, he told an Arizona TV station that U.S. intelligence has repeatedly shown China suppressed information about the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak before COVID-19 spread to become a global pandemic.

The interview was part of Kelly’s new mission: trying to oust GOP Sen. Martha McSally, herself an aerospace pioneer as the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat. The clash of the two American flight titans has become one of the most closely watched campaigns in the country.

McSally narrowly lost her 2018 Senate campaign to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, appointed her to fill the seat of the late Sen. John McCain, another legendary fighter pilot who spent five years as a POW in North Vietnam, then went on to win two terms in the House, six in the Senate and his party’s nomination for president in 2008.

McSally in recent weeks has blamed China’s coronavirus cover-up for the death of thousands of Americans as both Republicans and Democrats have tried to distance themselves from the Xi government for its failure to contain the virus.

Last August, in another press interview, Kelly mentioned his national security experience with some of “the space stuff, and satellites” as making him particularly sensitive to the threats from China, along with Iran, North Korea and Russia, with the biggest danger coming from “stuff you can’t see,” an apparent reference to cyberwarfare and less obvious malign activities.