A relieved SpaceX CEO Elon Musk welcomed residence the to start with NASA astronauts to fly to house on his firm’s Crew Dragon car or truck.
Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken returned to Earth just after two months in orbit and safely and securely splashed down in the Gulf Coast waters off Florida on Sunday (Aug. 2). The astronauts, ultimately again on their residence earth, then caught a plane experience household to Houston, exactly where NASA’s astronaut corps is dependent. There, Musk joined NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine to welcome the pair residence from the test flight and share his exhilaration about what will come next.
“I do imagine what this heralds definitely is fundamentally a new period in spaceflight,” Musk said. “We’re likely to go to the moon, we are heading to have a foundation on the moon, we’re heading to deliver people today to Mars and make daily life multiplanetary and I believe this working day heralds a new age of house exploration. That’s what it is really all about.”
In images: SpaceX’s historic Demo-2 examination flight with astronauts
Hurley and Behnken’s flight, dubbed Demo-2, was the 1st crewed flight in NASA’s commercial crew program to outsource astronaut rides to the room station to businesses, an initiative that began in 2014. A second firm, Boeing, also holds a contract with the system and is anticipated to refly an uncrewed test flight of its Starliner motor vehicle after a mishap in December left the capsule unable to achieve the area station.
Spaceflight is always dangerous, but especially so throughout a check flight, a actuality that astronauts and mission leaders alike have acknowledged all over the lead-up to the Demo-2 flight. Musk referenced the riskiness obliquely in his welcoming remarks.
“I imagine, like, my entire adrenaline just dumped, you know? Like, thank God,” Musk stated. “I’m not very spiritual, but I prayed for this a person.”
Musk also pointed to the context in which Hurley and Behnken built their flight. The pair flew to and from place as a pandemic ravaged the state, among other ongoing crises.
“I imagine this is one thing that the whole planet can consider some pleasure in and can actually seem at this as an accomplishment of humanity,” Musk stated. “These are difficult times, when there is certainly not that significantly excellent information. I think this is a person of all those issues that is universally superior, no issue exactly where you are on earth Earth. This is a great point, and I hope it brightens your working day.”
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