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[helicopter blades whirring]
[cameras clicking]
[spectators clapping, cheering]
[officer 1] Core and countdown one in two hours, 57 minutes.
The crew has arrived at the pad on schedule.
[officer 2] Copy.
Dragon's healthy and ready for crew ingress.
[woman] You're looking at the rocket that will return American astronauts
to the International Space Station from American soil
for the first time since nearly nine years ago.
[man] Today's mission is known as Demonstration Mission-2, or Demo-2.
Demo-2 is the final test for NASA to certify SpaceX
for regular crew flights to the space station.
[officer 1] Core and countdown one in T-minus two hours and 46 minutes.
The crew has arrived at the White Room. Its ingress is in progress on schedule.
[inspirational music playing]
[officer 2] Dragon has transitioned to terminal count and is on internal power.
Stage one locks load, close out.
[solemn music playing]
[Elon] Earth is the cradle of humanity,
but you cannot stay in the cradle forever.
It is time to go forth,
be out there among the stars,
expand the scope and scale of human consciousness.
[officer] Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
[epic music playing]
[Elon] There's this little candle of consciousness on Earth.
It hasn't been around for very long,
and it could easily go out.
It could be a meteor,
extreme climate change.
Who knows? A third world war.
Clearly, we need to preserve the light of consciousness into the future
by becoming a multi-planet species, extending life beyond Earth.
[dramatic music playing]
Before starting SpaceX,
I was waiting for NASA to send people up to Mars.
Every year, I'd look at the NASA website, and I was like, "Well, it's hard to f--"
[laughs] There just didn't seem to be a date
for when we're sending people to Mars.
In fact, uh, space, you could say, like,
"Look, we were able to go to the Moon in '69,
and our last mission to the Moon was in '72."
"And now here we are half a century later,
and still we have not gone back to the Moon."
The absolutely fundamental breakthrough
that's needed for humanity to become a multi-planet species
is a rocket system that's fully and rapidly reusable.
-[men] Yeah. -So, uh…
[man] For 50 years, NASA has been left behind.
As the NASA administrator,
I will tell you, that is a failure of our nation.
But now, through our partnership with commercial companies like SpaceX,
we have the opportunity to fix that.
If Mission Demo-2 is successful,
we'll launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil
for the first time in nine years.
[inspirational music playing]
The ability to once again send our astronauts
to the International Space Station
is the first step in getting humans ready to go to Mars.
[man 1] Good morning, safety divers EV-1 and 2. How do you copy?
Copy safety divers EV-1, copy safety divers EV-2, going to backup.
[woman] Five GPH and work on the blue.
Alarms have been enabled, and we show no alarms that impact testing.
[man 2] Hey, Bob, you're gonna need a Bravo 7.
[Bob] Okay.
[man 2] Bob and I, we're laser-focused on what we need to do
to get Dragon safely to Space Station
and then, you know, our mission on board Space Station after that.
We've been close friends
since we started as astronauts almost 20 years ago.
-[Doug] That feel better? -[Bob] Yep. That's good.
Doug's a meticulous pilot and extremely skilled at the same time.
[man speaking indistinctly on radio]
[engine roaring]
It's a… a rare person that kinda can put both skills together
where not only are they super good,
but they're also super good at staying out of trouble.
[indistinct chatter on radio]
He's a Marine, right? And so he does have some of the stereotypical, uh, things
about a Marine, so you need to know that.
Everything has a place, and I like things organized and symmetrical,
and Bob… Bob's just… He doesn't have time for that stuff.
[Doug] It's just an override. It allows you to bypass…
He's got a tighter sense of hygiene than I do, I think.
"Do you really want it cleaned that well?" "Yes, I do."
[laughing]
[man] Try to give you as much flying as possible today, just to show you…
[Doug] Bob's got an incredible mind.
He's just always a little bit ahead of everybody else.
He's very analytical, very mechanical,
which I think is why he's been such a successful spacewalker.
He pictures it,
yet he has the ability, mechanically, to do those things.
[Bob] I'll just get to another handrail over here.
[Doug] Bob expects a lot out of himself.
We set pretty high bars for ourselves and each other.
[speaking indistinctly]
[Doug] You got a lot you need to get done,
and there's a lot of people that are counting on you to get it done.
[cameras clicking]
How confident are you that we'll see humans launch from US soil
this year or in the summer?
Um, it's been 17 years, and we still haven't launched anyone yet.
[all laugh]
But hopefully, we will later this year.
Seems like you're feeling good about flying on it.
Yeah, I think this is… this is what you wanna see.
You wanna see the team hitting its stride,
uh, as we get ready to put people on these things.
[reporter] Elon, you've got these two guys sitting right next to you.
Any thoughts on that, how you're gonna get through that launch?
I suspect it'll be extremely stressful,
but we've been very focused on just making sure that the vehicle works.
We definitely won't launch till we've done everything we can possibly think of,
that's for sure.
[solemn music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[speaks indistinctly]
[Jim] We are doing everything we can
to make these vehicles as safe as possible,
because my generation, we… we remember a catastrophe.
I remember exactly where I was in 1986 when the Challenger exploded.
I was in Miss Powers' fifth grade class.
This was the mission with Christa McAuliffe,
a teacher going into space.
They brought in the TVs.
[officer] Challenger, go with throttle-up.
-[exploding] -[crowd clamoring]
[spectators screaming]
[reporter] What appears to be a major catastrophe
in America's space program,
Challenger, only seconds after leaving the launchpad,
has exploded in midair.
No word yet on if there are any survivors.
[Bob] Spaceflight is an unforgiving environment.
You know, you're riding a controlled bomb into space,
and you're accelerating to 17,500 miles an hour.
Obviously, there is inherent risk.
With all of our experience on the NASA side,
having dealt with the risk,
Doug and I were a good fit, I think, for SpaceX.
That experience with the actual loss of a crew
was something that they felt was important for the crew members
that were gonna work on developing a new vehicle.
Do you do it on the back one normally, Bob?
You know, Bob and I have been working with SpaceX for five years.
We're involved with the design.
And, of course, one of the things that we wanted Dragon to have
that shuttle didn't have is the abort system.
[soft music playing]
If something goes really, really wrong…
we'll be automatically separated from the booster
and parachute back down into the Atlantic.
Today is the uncrewed test of this abort system.
[music intensifies]
[host] Good morning, everybody. We are now actually live.
It's awesome, but I'm also just a little bit sad.
I don't wanna see a rocket intentionally blow up
and sacrifice itself for the safety of humankind's going to space,
but sometimes, that's what you gotta do, you know, so…
I've been doing this full-time on YouTube for almost three years.
I'll move closer so you have a sense of scale.
The point of Everyday Astronaut
is to bring space down to Earth for everyday people.
We're gonna be trying to track the rocket with this…
Thirty-five percent of my audience is in the United States.
Sixty-five percent is an international audience.
And so spaceflight is literally uniting people
around this common goal of space exploration.
It's not… it's not just one person or one country. It is humanity.
You're exploring together.
T-minus ten.
Five, four, three, two, one,
ignition.
[rumbling]
Look at that! [laughs ecstatically]
We are in this. We are doing this.
Yes!
[ambient music playing]
-[rumbling] -Whoo!
Yes! Look at that!
-[laughing] Car alarms are going off! -[car alarms sounding]
Car alarms are going off!
Oh, those clouds might ruin our shots here.
Here we go. It's gonna happen right now in the clouds.
No!
We have to watch SpaceX's stream.
[epic music playing]
[officer 1] Vehicle is supersonic
and passing through maximum dynamic pressure.
[officer 2] Dragon launch escape initiated.
[people cheering]
[officer 3] Dragon's away.
Okay, the major activity coming up.
[woman] Okay, you just saw a bright flash there.
It looks like Falcon 9 breaking up.
And there they are. Drogue chutes are out.
[all cheering]
[Jim] Another amazing milestone is complete.
This was a very successful test.
It looked beautiful. [chuckles]
Yeah, obviously, I'm super fired up. This is great, you know?
[reporter] I was wondering how much data you were able to get after the breakup.
[Elon] We lost telemetry on the first stage
shortly after it exploded.
[all laughing]
There's definitely not any big pieces of the rocket left.
Hi. Loren Grush with The Verge.
The explosion that happened today with the Falcon 9,
what would happen if an explosion like that occurred
while the Crew Dragon was still attached? Is there any concern about that happening?
It's much more a fireball than it is an explosion.
It should be, uh, really not significantly affected by a fireball.
So it could quite literally, like something out of Star Wars,
fly right out of the fireball.
Um, so that's, uh…
Obviously, we wanna avoid… avoid doing that, but… [laughs]
[woman] Well, thank you, all.
[cameras clicking]
[reporter] Elon, doesn't this deserve a dance today?
-[reporters laughing] -[reporter] Come on.
I… I can't set these expectations, uh, of… of dancing constantly.
-I… I'm not that good of a dancer. -[reporter] You are!
-I'm gonna have to work on my skills. -[reporter] You are.
No, no. I… I am not your dancing puppet.
[all laughing]
[splutters] I'll tell you what, after crew launch, 100%.
-[reporters laughing] -All right, it's good to see everyone.
[Doug] What we did this morning was almost a final exam for the system
we're gonna fly here in a very short time.
[speaking indistinctly]
[Doug] There's certainly a fair amount of work left to do.
We've got final simulations.
But just to see the in-flight abort
and think about flying rockets again to the space station,
it's unbelievable.
[inspirational music playing]
I mean, nine years ago,
you know, I was the pilot on the last shuttle flight.
At that point, I didn't know if I was ever gonna fly again.
[whooshing]
[reporter] We're about to see something that none of us will ever see again,
the launch of a space shuttle.
On the 135th and final space shuttle mission,
the shuttle program coming to an end after 30 years of flight.
[rumbling]
[officer] Space shuttle spreads its wings one final time
for the start of a sentimental journey into history.
[sentimental music playing]
[Doug on radio] Houston station, Atlantis on the big loop.
[man] Atlantis…
[reporter] Flying high over the Atlantic Ocean
off the west coast of Africa,
as we watch Doug Hurley up on the flight deck of Atlantis.
[Doug] I remember the last night we were in space.
Right before I went to bed, you know,
just looking out the overhead window of the shuttle…
you know, you could just see,
I mean, literally see out into the galaxy.
And to see what's over that next bend and around that next curve
is why I originally got into this business.
And, you know, knowing it was the last flight of the shuttle,
just looking out and thinking about what was gonna happen after that,
uh, it was pretty tough.
[sonic booms echoing]
[officer] With its signature sound of twin sonic booms
piercing the predawn sky
as the space shuttle announces its arrival at the launch site,
having gone subsonic for the last time.
[tires screeching]
Hurley now deploying the drag chute.
[Doug] Hey, thanks to you and your team, Mike.
Until the very end, you all made it look easy.
The shuttle's always gonna be a reflection of what a great nation can do
when it dares to be bold and commits to follow through.
[crowd cheering]
[cameras clicking]
[woman] When I became Deputy Administrator of NASA,
anybody who looked at it knew
that we had to retire the space shuttle program.
It was very expensive.
You know, we had already spent hundreds of billions of dollars
building it and keeping it going.
And it was also dangerous.
We'd lost astronauts twice.
To replace the shuttle,
we ultimately ended up launching with the Russians in Russia.
[man speaking Russian over PA]
[woman] The American space agency signed a new contract.
The US will pay about $82 million to Russia
for every astronaut on board a flight to the International Space Station.
[Lori] On the New York media tour, Stephen Colbert asked the crew,
"So what would you tell a kid today growing up who wants to be an astronaut?"
And Sandy Magnus answers,
"Learn Russian."
[man over PA] Three, two, one, zero.
[exploding]
[woman] Oh goodness.
[reporter 1] The end of an era in Florida.
One of Cape Canaveral's most storied launch sites
was imploded this morning.
[reporter 2] Forty years of space history is being dismantled and demolished,
just one more sign that human spaceflight is coming to an end.
[Doug] It was really a tumultuous time, I think, especially for the astronauts.
Things were changing pretty drastically,
and we weren't really sure kinda what was gonna happen.
[Lori] We needed something very different,
so we had to create a new program,
which required turning to the private sector.
[people applauding]
[Obama] We will partner with industry,
we will invest in cutting-edge research and technology,
and by 2025,
we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys
to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions
beyond the Moon into deep space.
And a landing on Mars will follow.
-And I expect to be around to see it. -[people applauding]
Thank you.
["The Stars and Stripes Forever" playing]
[Lori] I thought tapping into the private sector
was really a symbol of innovation.
Of course, there were a lot of questions and concerns.
Like if companies are on the Moon, does that mean they own it?
So I thought we'd need new laws,
but I was pretty sure that
the private sector would get us over the hump.
Getting everybody to agree was the challenge.
[gavel banging]
I want order in this hearing room.
I find serious flaws in the president's proposal
that relies on a still-developing commercial sector
that may not be able to deliver.
Safety has been…
[Lori] You know, change is hard.
The relentless momentum of the status quo
of a tens-of-billions-of-dollar government program
is a lot to overcome…
[laughing] …and people went batshit crazy on us.
The proposal by the administration…
…is a bad idea.
…will be, in a word, devastating.
Many of the companies are start-ups.
We're not sending cases of Tang into space.
Future generations will learn how the Chinese, the Russians,
and even the Indians took the reins of human space exploration away…
[Lori] The industry feared new entrants.
You're in the club if you're a big aerospace company.
There's a lot of revolving doors between astronauts
who then go to companies,
and it became us versus them.
[man] I want to welcome Mr. Neil Armstrong,
who was commander of Apollo 11,
Eugene Cernan, who was commander of Apollo 17.
And we will start with you, Mr. Armstrong.
There will be overlooked requirements and unwelcome consequences.
This proposal has no focus
and is, in fact, a blueprint for a mission to nowhere.
You had to hold me down in my seat. I was… I was so… [laughs] I was so upset.
And I was not the only one.
I was very sad to see that, uh, because those guys are… Yeah.
You know, those guys are heroes of mine, so it's really tough.
They inspired you to do this, didn't they?
Yes.
[interviewer] And to see them casting stones in your direction…
It's difficult.
I… I wish they would come and visit and see what we're doing here.
And I think that would change their mind.
[dog barking in distance]
[man] Why is this not working?
I've worked for SpaceX for years now.
[chuckles]
Can't turn it on.
And in that time, of course, SpaceX has had lots of successes.
Come on.
But also, you know,
it's had its fair share of failures.
For many failures that we had, I felt like we could have done better here or there.
[model train chugging]
But this is what the business is, right?
You make mistakes, and you fix them the next time.
[train whistle blowing]
Okay, you see it works.
The great thing about Elon
is that he understands that failure is part of the development,
and he's been that way ever since the day I met him.
[indistinct chatter]
I decided one day to go to an amateur rocket weekend.
All right, let's go. Let's go fly.
[whooshing]
[people whooping]
[Hans] We ran into Elon Musk there
and talked a little bit about rockets and… and plans what to do.
And then he asked me
if I'd be interested in working at a company
to build a rocket and go to Mars.
If you say Mars in Germany,
people will just laugh at you and think you're crazy.
It took me ten milliseconds to just say yes.
[solemn music playing]
[reporter 1] In a warehouse near the Los Angeles Airport,
Musk and his staff are building a rocket they call the Falcon.
Musk is no rocket scientist.
He's a dot-com millionaire many times over.
Now he says he can do what NASA has not,
jump-start the space age.
I… I had somewhere in the order of 100 million to invest…
[reporter 2] Oh wow.
…and thought we could at least do some good
for the advancement of space exploration.
[reporter 1] Falcon 1 is expected to launch this fall.
Elon Musk's fortune will be riding on it.
[woman] Hans introduced me to Elon.
And I'd been in this industry for 15 years,
and I saw what could be done and wasn't being done.
And I really felt like, if anyone was gonna break through the mire
of a very bureaucratic industry,
Elon and SpaceX was kind of the last opportunity.
[Elon] These are dispersed rocket parts.
Parts for the stages, parts for the engines.
[Gwynne] I remember the early days of SpaceX.
It was a small team.
But when you can all rally around one project,
magic can happen.
[whirring]
We were all focused on exactly the same thing,
getting Falcon 1 to orbit.
On the fuel side, we're gonna add a port rather than mess with the valve.
So we'll just…
[Elon] Designing an orbital rocket,
it's… it's not the mad scientist, like, "Yeah, I've got the idea." It's…
It's just a monumental amount of work.
Everything, the engines,
software, hardware, down to the nuts and bolts,
was redesigned for the modern era.
[Hans] It's extremely difficult to build a rocket from scratch.
Falcon 1 is a two-stage rocket.
Basically, the rocket launches, and the first stage burns out.
The two stages separate,
and the second stage ignites to get to orbit.
And rockets are unforgiving.
One design error, and… and everything is… is over.
[Elon] At that point, I was not sure whether success was even possible.
I told the team I'd have enough money for three flights,
and then that'll be it, you know.
Curtains if we didn't make it in three flights.
[Hans] We understood what was on the line.
So we worked on it for four years.
I had no doubts ever.
I was just so focused on building the company
and… and getting… getting the rocket to fly.
[officer 1] Five, four, three, two, one, zero.
Plus one, plus two, plus three, plus four,
plus five, plus six, plus seven,
plus eight, plus nine, plus ten.
This is the LC on the countdown net.
Falcon 1 is airborne at this time.
[people cheering]
[officer 2] We have a loss of signal there.
[Elon] About 30 seconds after liftoff, the engine shut itself off.
[exploding]
[Hans] The really hard part was collecting the pieces the next day.
We'd worked on it for years, and suddenly everything was over.
I came back home after a couple days,
and my wife told me I did not talk at home for two months.
I had… It took me… It took me so long to just get over this
and… and… and collect myself
and then continue working on… on rocket number two.
[officer] Five, four, three, two, one.
[Hans] A year later, our second attempt failed.
[rumbling]
And the year after our second attempt, our third launch failed,
and we knew the company was in a bad place.
[explodes]
[Elon] We were running on fumes at that point. We had virtually no money.
[tense music playing]
Uh, that was… that was definitely the worst year of my life.
And I never thought I was someone who could ever
be capable of a nervous breakdown,
but I… I felt this is the closest I've ever come,
'cause it… it seemed pretty, pretty dark.
[Hans] I was pretty depressed at the time.
You know, three failures in a row,
um, wasn't really a testament of… of great engineering.
Elon pulled us in a big conference room,
and I expected him to say, "You guys suck,"
and stop it at this point,
but he was just the opposite.
He was actually saying,
"I want you guys to fix everything
and launch another rocket as fast as you can."
He put all the money that he had into SpaceX
and was doubling down, basically, on… on… on this.
And… and I was really, "Whoa, okay, that's, uh…"
I didn't expect that.
[suspenseful music playing]
[officer] T-minus 30 seconds.
Deck one is triggered.
[Gwynne] I knew NASA was watching our flights,
and so we needed to get Falcon 1 to orbit
to prove that we could earn the right to work with them.
I think Elon was even more nervous, um, than I was.
[officer] Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five,
four, three, two, one.
[rumbling]
We have liftoff.
Oh fuck.
[suspenseful music continues]
[exhales]
[breathing heavily]
[man speaking indistinctly]
[Elon] Come on, baby.
[exhales sharply]
Please tell me that's second-stage lights.
[indistinct chatter]
-[grunts] Fuck. Thanks. -We're already 2B.
Thank fucking God.
I mean, whatever.
-Thank whoever. Fuck. -[laughing]
[indistinct chatter]
Come on. Just fucking hold, you fucker.
It's hard getting to orbit, but we learned a lot on flight one,
we learned a lot on flight two,
and we learned a huge amount on flight three.
And we were ready to fly.
-[man 1] Second stage approaching SECO. -[whooshing]
-[man 2] And that would be a nominal SECO… -[all cheering]
…which means Falcon 1's the first privately developed launch vehicle
to reach Earth orbit from the ground.
[cheering continues]
-[all cheering] -[cameras clicking]
This is one of the greatest days of my life,
and I think probably for… for most people here.
We've shown people we can do it, and this is just the first step of many,
ultimately getting to Mars.
And I think the future of SpaceX is really great.
[all cheering]
[interviewer] In the history of spaceflight,
only four entities have launched a space capsule into orbit
and successfully brought it back to the Earth,
the United States, Russia, China, and Elon Musk.
NASA called and told us that we'd won the $1.5 billion contract.
And I couldn't even hold the phone.
I was like… I just blurted out, "I love you guys." [laughs]
[electronic music playing]
[rumbling]
[reporter] SpaceX again successfully launched its Falcon rocket.
[man 1] Today will be the fifth Falcon 9 launch.
[man 2] Today we'll be placing a communication satellite…
[man 3] …a TV satellite into space.
[woman 1] 23 satellites, geostationary orbit.
-[man 4] SpaceX… -[man 5] SpaceX…
[woman 2] SpaceX plans to launch a dozen commercial satellites a year.
[man 6] SpaceX may be in the lead to win NASA's confidence,
but SpaceX isn't alone.
-You're creating, like, spaceships. -Yeah.
-Yes! -[laughs]
[man 7] Musk and Bezos are dueling for contracts
to supply the International Space Station.
The third space billionaire, Branson,
wants to create a space tourism industry for hefty fees.
[Branson] You wouldn't imagine that something shaped like that
would fly so gracefully and so beautifully.
[man 7] Somehow it all seems a little less noble
than in the early days.
Perhaps space travel today is all about money and ego.
[man] Thanks for not lighting this place on fire.
-[Elon] You're welcome. -[man laughs]
How does one decide to just make a flamethrower?
Well, I'm a big fan of Spaceballs the movie,
and in Spaceballs,
Yogurt goes through the merchandising section,
and they have a flamethrower.
-Spaceballs the Flamethrower! -[all] Ooh!
The kids love this one.
Does anybody tell you no? Does anybody go, "Elon, um…
[sucks in air]
…selling a flamethrower, the liabilities"?
-Yeah, it's a terrible idea. Terrible. -[man laughs]
[Elon] I said, "Don't buy this flamethrower. Don't buy it."
Still, people bought it. I just couldn't stop them.
Elon… [chuckles] …you know, he's gonna do what he's gonna do.
I mean, he has an Iron Man suit in the middle of the factory floor.
How does it work? Do people get upset at you if you do certain things?
There's tobacco and marijuana in there. That's all it is.
[man 1] Oh, here we go. Elon Musk back making headlines.
That is his specialty.
[Lori] Elon was out there, you know, creating lots of stories.
And so I didn't have any reason to believe at first he'd be the one.
[man 1] Now he took a lot of heat for smoking marijuana on camera.
He was ridiculed for his wild middle-of-the-night tweets.
[man 2] What is going on with Elon Musk?
He's an eccentric billionaire, I suppose. So an eccentric sense of humor as well.
[Doug] He's a human, just like the rest of us.
You know, we all have our pluses and minuses.
[crowd cheering]
To be out there among the stars, I… I find that incredibly exciting.
-That makes me glad to be alive. -[crowd cheering]
[Doug] But I don't think it has anything to do with individual antics
or individual wealth.
This is a much greater vision
that he has for not only society but the planet.
That hasn't changed.
And he demands a lot of everyone around him,
I think as much as he demands out of himself,
and, you know, he's relentless.
[audience applauding]
You decided to build a space company.
Why on Earth would someone do that?
[audience laughing]
-Got that question a lot. That's true. -[all laughing]
The big innovation is still ahead, and you're working on it now.
Tell us… tell us about this.
Uh, the goal of SpaceX is to try to crack a problem that I think is vital
for humanity to become a spacefaring civilization,
which is to have a… a rapidly and fully reusable rocket.
[rumbling]
The space shuttle was an attempt at a reusable rocket.
But even the main tank of the space shuttle
was thrown away every time.
So it's possible to achieve, let's say, roughly a hundredfold improvement
in the cost of spaceflight if you can effectively reuse the rocket.
[Lori] A general estimate of how much we have spent
in human spaceflight since Apollo is around $350 billion,
and we send about 350 US astronauts to space.
So it's about a billion dollars a person.
So being able to lower that cost is just such an obvious goal,
or you're never going to go anywhere.
In order to make spaceflight cheap,
and in order to land on Mars and do all these things,
you have to have a fully reusable rocket.
It's really common in space movies and science fiction to see…
Retros on!
[Tim] …you know, the sci-fi vision of the rocket
that can take off and land anywhere.
That's so far away from what was even considered possible.
Like, that's really, really, really hard to do.
[man] In fact, no one had ever tried to land an orbital booster.
Landing a rocket certainly seemed absurd when we first started trying it.
To get it right, you have to set down this thing
that is the size of a skyscraper and weighing 30 tons
and land it on this speck in the middle of the ocean.
At any point, any part of that can go wrong,
and it'll only end one way, which is in an explosion.
[Tim] SpaceX is not afraid of failure. They almost embrace failure.
"Hey, we're gonna test this. It might blow up."
"If it blows up, we'll learn something."
[Jim] The way a traditional partner with NASA works,
everything all along the way
is qualified before it ever gets on the vehicle.
SpaceX does things very differently.
The two philosophies couldn't be more opposite.
You'll see NASA literally solving everything on paper,
and SpaceX is literally building stuff, seeing what breaks,
and then iterating from there.
They're developing a rocket around those explosions.
That's why it's important to have a lot of launches and make a lot of rockets.
Every rocket, every launch is an opportunity to improve.
[Gwynne] Obviously, we get unhappy about failures that we have,
but we also are pleased with the results that come out of failures.
You never know your system
until you've pushed it to the limit so that it breaks.
[Lars] One of the reasons people had imagined reusable rockets
but had never achieved it
is that we'd never cracked precision landing.
After the rocket launches,
the booster stage separates
and then flips around to shoot back towards Earth.
So we had to figure out
how to get a rocket that's moving seven times the speed of sound
back to its target.
First, we developed the legs,
the engines, the actuators and sensors, and some very advanced algorithms.
Finally, we added grid fins.
By rotating these fins,
we precisely guide and fly the rocket back to the target.
[hissing]
At the very last minute,
we light the engines one more time for the landing burn
to slow the rocket all the way down for landing,
hopefully right in the middle of the X.
[officer] Six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.
[rumbling]
Liftoff of Falcon 9.
Falcon 9 has cleared the tower.
[man 1] Stage separation confirmed.
[people cheering]
[man 2] The first stage is returning to land.
-[man 3] Stage one landing burn. -[man 4] Stage one landing burn.
["Blue Danube Waltz" by Johann Strauss playing]
[Lars] Thousands of people worked on the booster landing.
Seven years was entirely about getting that booster to land.
When that thing finally came down
and did a picture-perfect landing right on the target,
it's just one of those moments…
[all cheering]
…that you will carry for the rest of your life.
-It's standing up. It's standing up. -[man 1] It's standing up.
[all cheering]
[man 2] Oh my God.
[man 3] Look at this. It's just sitting there.
Holy smokes, man.
[all cheering]
["Blue Danube Waltz" continues]
[Tim] To see them doing this over and over and over
and hitting these bull's-eye targets,
it's just an absolute testament to the… the engineering involved.
["Blue Danube Waltz" continues]
[Lori] Elon and SpaceX changed our industry completely.
Because everything is reusable,
they can now launch for a tenth of the cost that we had,
which saves a lot of tax dollars.
["Blue Danube Waltz" continues]
[music ends]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Jim] Launching in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic,
it's been a challenge.
But we're gonna persevere through this.
We're gonna get Bob and Doug safely to the International Space Station.
Because this mission
to once again launch our astronauts from American soil,
it's really about hope.
It's about looking up and saying, "Look, we can still do amazing things,
even when we're being challenged in ways that we've never been challenged before."
Bob and Doug are going into quarantine with their families
in the lead-up to launch day.
This quarantine period is normal for any launch.
Though I guess not much will change for them
since they've been in some form of quarantine since March.
We entered the quarantine period,
so it's hands-off to the rest of the world
until we get back from the International Space Station.
[birds chirping]
-[woman] How's it look? -Looks good to me.
I'm guessing we're not gonna have this on Space Station, right?
Mm-mm.
You know, everything that you know and love is down there,
and you're up here.
And then hopefully everything will work
so I can get back down there, uh, to see 'em again.
Mom, you're walking. I thought we…
[woman] I'm gonna catch you.
[Doug] I wanna make sure that I focus on my family,
you know, this being kind of my last opportunity.
Oh yeah, I might be living up there in two weeks.
[boy] Sure.
[Doug] Remember when you saw Mommy on this thing?
[boy] Yeah.
[Jim] Probably nobody knows more about what the astronauts are going through,
of course, other than another astronaut.
[Doug] Copy. Oh, nice silhouette on the door.
Bob and I, you know, we're both married to astronauts.
My wife, Karen, she's got two flights.
[Karen] After my shuttle flight to the space station,
I was not fulfilled completely. I… I wanted more, you know.
And so I went back up there for six months.
[astronaut] Hey, you guys.
-Hey, you guys. Good to see you. -Hey.
[Karen] Every day was varied,
but the main objective was to conduct science
in a zero-gravity environment.
I mean, the station is basically a huge laboratory that's built in space.
Any experiments where we interacted with the researchers on the ground,
that was always fun because you could just feel their excitement
and how these experiments help to figure out what's happening on Earth.
[Doug] Because of the tremendous amount of time Karen was on board the ISS,
there were people years later saying, "Hey, I found your wife's hair up here."
I'm like, "Well, well, sorry."
[man] What a beautiful spaceship we're on, guys.
[Bob] My wife, Megan,
flew on a space shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
[Megan] Clear the pin. Five seconds, the mode switch is in auto.
-Three, two, one, release. -[beeping]
My mission was the final servicing and repair mission for the telescope.
We would joke and say, "We're helping to unlock the mysteries of the universe,"
but it really is true.
So whenever I see an article in the paper
where a group of scientists have discovered something new,
I always think, you know, "Hey, you helped a little bit with that." [laughs]
[Doug] Before any of us actually got into space,
Bob and Megan and Karen and I, we were all classmates.
And so we spent a lot of time together.
[news anchor] So far, so good on the ascent of the space shuttle Atlantis
on this its 22nd mission,
the 99th flight in space shuttle history.
[Karen] One of the astronauts from the class ahead of us
hosted a party to celebrate the incoming class,
and I first met Doug at that party.
We were friends first.
It… it took a few years to become more than that, but, um…
Yeah, I think we were lucky, though, to find each other.
[Megan] I remember actually the first time I really heard about Bob.
We each received kind of this pamphlet
that showed everyone's picture and, like, a two-sentence bio.
He was born in this year, and he graduated in this year,
and he got a PhD by this year.
He's got to be some kind of, you know, child prodigy.
And he said, "Well, there's actually a typo in there with the dates,"
But I think you'll find that he is a prodigy. [laughs]
[speaking indistinctly]
[Megan] But over time, I think it became clear
that we were gonna build a life together.
Had a chance to come out to the old astronaut beach house today.
I'm really looking forward to spending some time with my family out here
before launching on Dragon in just a few short days.
[Megan] You know, I think the thing that's most important to us right now
is that we are living every day normally.
We're just enjoying time together as we get closer and closer to launch.
-[boy] Blastoff! -[rocket whooshing]
Oh, that was our new DM-2 tradition
with our sons to launch rockets from the beach.
-[people cheering] -[Bob] Thank you.
-[Megan] Hey. Bye-bye. -[Bob] Thank you.
-Thank you, guys. -[Megan] Bye-bye.
As we approach liftoff,
I'm just kind of feeling sort of joy tinged with terror,
I guess is the best way that I can describe it.
It's like every other trip, over-packing.
[Karen] Being the person watching, especially having been a crew member,
it's all out of your control.
There's nothing you can do other than watch,
and it's… it's definitely a lot harder.
[chuckling]
-None of these I would ever want. -You gonna grow a mustache?
[Doug] The best your family can do is break even, right? You come back.
-[hairdresser] Never want a what? -Never had a mustache.
I have wrestled with that.
But in the end, ultimately,
you want your child to understand that during your life,
there are things that are risky,
but if it results in a better world, maybe it's worth that risk.
[man] So what you're looking at here
is our main stage for the launch broadcast.
We've got three cameras, then what you don't see is the fourth one.
-We'll have a jib out here as well. -[Jim] Okay.
They're putting together a Launch America banner
that will be brought up directly behind our hosts.
Behind that, you'll get a little NASA in there.
You'll get a little of the American flag in there as our backdrop.
So you got layers of depth to work with, which is kinda nice.
And where we go from here is the full dress rehearsal,
as if it were live.
[woman] This is the point when the launch escape system is armed,
and that happens just before SpaceX begins fueling the Falcon 9 rocket
at T-minus 35 minutes.
As a reminder, the purpose…
Right, I'm gonna interrupt Lauren
because it looks like we've had some type of anomaly on the pad.
We have a developing situation with our launch operations.
We've taken a pause
for our NASA and SpaceX teams to gather information.
We are not going away.
We're gonna stay here on this pad shot,
so please stay with us.
Would we really hold on the disaster?
In terms of what, when you say hold?
Like, would we just watch it…
Like, if it's a flaming mess, we just watch the rocket explode?
[man] So depending on when and how it plays itself out,
we'd probably be cutting to a wide shot
and watching this thing happen.
Can we cut to a control room or something?
We couldn't cut away.
-Okay. -Yeah.
Ugh!
Couldn't cut away.
-Uh, we would get… -Hey, look at that.
-[rumbling] -Static fire happening right now.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Tim] So it looks like they have had successful static fire of the rocket.
That's where they hold the rocket down and actually light up its engines
to make sure all things are good to go.
And it looks like that has gone smoothly.
This is my sign. This is when I was gonna hit the road,
because that means they're still on track to actually be launching here.
I have to pack masks. It's a freaking pandemic.
This is the actual warning label,
like on the International Space Station, the hatches.
I mean, even space underwear.
I am… I'm a nerd.
Now, with humans flying, starting to get a little… a little nervousness
because I have watched rockets fail.
Just today, Virgin Orbit had their first orbital launch attempt,
and it failed.
And it sucks. Space is hard.
There's still so many moving parts,
and there's so many things that can go wrong.
And, of course, I have a lot of confidence in the systems,
but it… There is a real sense of… of importance.
There's a real sense of danger now.
It's getting a lot more real now.
[suspenseful music continues]
[thunder rumbling]
[man 1 over speaker] With primary day tomorrow,
it's looking a little wishy-washy.
Um, all the models are showing some isolated storms
just west of the staging area that--
[man 2] Yeah, you can see the map. That's the front approaching.
Looks pretty scary.
The, uh, risk for, uh, the launch corridor went up to 47%,
in the high category.
I was gonna suggest maybe Ben, since he compiled this,
what would be his recommendation?
[Ben] Looking at just wind and waves at this point,
I… I feel like it's within a risk level that we would accept.
Um, but based on the… the rain, the lightning,
it's driving the numbers quite a bit higher.
[solemn music playing]
[Bala] Weather is very, you know, fickle in Florida.
Some of the most intense lightning I've seen in the world
happens at Cape Canaveral.
My job, at the end of the day,
is to make sure that the risk is acceptable
and give the final go-ahead for the mission.
I basically have to have nerves of steel. [laughs]
It's terrifying when you, like, say, like, "Yeah, go for launch."
[Ben] It's gonna be right on the edge, probably.
We got to be crisp on this thing going forward.
[thunder rumbling]
[Doug] Thunderstorms are such a big issue
because our launch to the space station is an instantaneous launch window.
Basically, we have to wait for the Earth to rotate
until station is directly overhead
and then launch at that exact millisecond.
Any problems it's like, "Oh, we're scrubbed."
You know, "We're not gonna go fly."
[Bala] In addition to all those weather factors,
one of the most nerve-racking moments
is loading propellant with astronauts on board.
We're basically loading, like, a million pounds of, like, fuel and oxygen
into this big tank, and the astronauts are sitting on top.
A rocket is an energetic system,
and anything leaking can be pretty catastrophic.
We have had an incident in the past…
[hissing]
[Hans] We destroyed the satellite, we destroyed the rocket,
we destroyed the launchpad,
and it took us months to figure out what… what happened.
[exploding]
The rocket blew up, but it was not caused by the fueling process, per se.
It was caused by a pressure tank.
[exploding]
I didn't expect it to fail that traumatic.
When you work on this, you really hope it works.
[Elon] I'm cautiously optimistic about tomorrow.
There's nothing more we can think of to improve the probability of success.
But I don't wanna tempt fate.
There's always things you don't know about,
so you don't know when those are gonna come and get you.
Um…
[inhales sharply]
Making sure Bob and Doug are safe is not simply our first priority.
It is our only priority.
[tense music playing]
[Jim] So at the top of the hour,
we're gonna make another judgment on the weather.
But remember, thunderstorms down here in Florida are generally isolated,
and so just because there's thunderstorms on the horizon
doesn't mean we can't launch.
I'm more optimistic than pessimistic,
but we're gonna get one last look at the top of the hour.
[cameraman] Thank you, sir.
-Have a great launch. -[Jim] My pleasure. Thank you.
-Hey, this is huge. -[cameraman] We got more down there.
Gets me through the day.
-[cameraman laughs] -I'm very grateful.
[Hans] It's not too bad.
I mean…
[thunder rumbling]
…it's a mess, but at least it's… It has a chance to clear up.
[thunder cracking]
[car alarm blaring]
[Jim] The big thing right now is isolated thunderstorms.
The question is, is it gonna be sufficiently problematic
to where we… we can't launch?
Um, right now, I'm being told fifty-fifty.
[thunder rumbling]
Hi, it's me, Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut.
I'm three miles away, looking at the rocket right now.
The weather is starting to clear up here a little bit,
but I can tell you, based on the amount of people,
this is definitely the launch to watch for the year, guys.
Now, just waiting to hear what's gonna happen.
My name is Jessie Anderson.
I'm a lead manufacturing engineer here at SpaceX,
and I speak for all of us when I say we could not be more excited
to finally be sending humans to the International Space Station.
It's a great day.
Today's mission is known as Demonstration Mission-2.
It's gonna be the first time a commercially built spacecraft
will launch people to the space station.
Demo-2 is an end-to-end flight test,
from launch all the way to docking,
and ending with splashdown.
And it's the final test for NASA to certify SpaceX
for regular crew flights to the space station.
[Gwynne] I don't get nervous for launches.
I don't get nervous for doing speaking gigs.
Starting a month ago or so, I started getting nervous for this launch.
I shouldn't have eaten breakfast.
[man] It's a stress-eating kind of day.
And then yesterday was tough, and today, just forget it.
Hard to get any work done at all today.
I always worry about the things that we don't know about.
Launch makes you superstitious.
It's called launch juju. Um, I don't know where that term came from.
I think it's an Air Force term actually, but people do very odd things.
[man] So here's my Dragon socks.
Cool launch-day socks is my ritual.
[Hans] I don't look at the mission sticker.
I can't look at it before we fly.
[woman] I will wear red sometimes when it's really important.
Don't wear red on launch day.
-Really? -Red means "no go." Don't wear it.
Wearing green would be extra good luck.
Hans has got it figured out.
I call it the launch beard. Like, you know, it grows out.
And then day of the launch, it cleans up.
I usually have a beard,
but if we don't launch more than two days in a row, I shave the beard.
[Bala] Why is that?
Just so that we can launch on the third day.
[Gwynne] I was in Scotland for the first time we got to orbit,
so for every launch,
I put stickies in my shoe that say "Scotland" on it.
So I am always in Scotland when we launch.
[man] Are you a very superstitious person?
I'm not at all, uh, except for this.
I think we've pounded flat the risks that we understand
and the risks we know about,
and I really hope we do the right thing by Doug and Bob
and get them to the space station safely
and inspire generations to come.
Really, we just can't fuck it up. [laughs]
That's the most important thing about today.
No fucking it up.
[Jim] This is my second one.
That was my first. So I don't know, is that like three? I don't know.
[man 1] Okay, Jim, we have the, uh, official weather update.
The cell that they're worried about has moved to the north.
-So we're go for launch. -[Jim] Fantastic.
-So we're gonna head over. -[man 2] Yes.
Big day, sir.
-[Jim] It is. -[man 1] Yeah, it is.
[man speaking indistinctly]
[Jim] I think anybody who's been involved in this
for the last decade
has got to be on the edge of their seat right now.
This agency has had many, many tough times in the past…
but for Bob and Doug's launch today,
we've done everything we can.
There comes that moment when you say, "Okay, now is the time."
[Jessie] Here they come, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.
They've each made this journey twice before.
[crowd cheering]
[male host] There's Megan and Karen and their sons.
-I love you. -[boy] I love you, Dad.
[cameras clicking]
Here's my big hug. Here comes the big hug.
Oh, squeeze.
[Doug] When you're saying goodbye to your family, you really realize
that there's more to it than just a rocket going up.
That there's… There can be consequences.
[sentimental music playing]
[Bob] To see your parent launch on the rocket,
it's scary for a small kid.
The first time we shared it with him,
his opinion was, you know, "Daddy can't go to space."
That's something I wasn't quite, uh, prepared for.
I didn't expect to… to have that hit me as much as it did.
[crowd cheering]
[tense music playing]
[woman] And we are following the convoy
as they continue to make their way to the pad.
These people have been working long hours.
Coronavirus happened, and we made it.
[helicopter blades whirring]
And here they come.
Just minutes from now, the astronauts will climb into Dragon.
[man] It's a beautiful view up there, too,
of getting ready for the business at hand of heading to the cosmos.
[technician] We're gonna make sure all your zippers are closed,
minus your gloves.
Good?
[indistinct chatter]
[man 1] Does it feel like this line is gonna move?
And then this will kind of move off.
[man 2] This should subside anything behind it.
-Okay. -[man 2] Probably a couple hours.
I think if we can get Elon here. I just wanna make sure he's in the loop.
[Elon] I just wanna double-check. Who's doing the measurement?
[Kiko] The Range.
Yeah, great, but who at the Range?
Uh, the Launch Weather Officer.
Basically, the whole weather office.
They're the ones that basically make the call on the Range weather.
Mike's gonna call it right now.
[Mike] Dragon, SpaceX. Weather is go at this time.
Dragon copy. Go weather.
[Mike] Dragon, SpaceX. You are go for section seven.
Close visors and arm launch escape system.
Visors coming closed.
7.2, our visors are closed, and we're arming the launch escape system.
[officer 1] Launch escape system is verified armed.
[launch director] Launch director to countdown net, poll is complete,
and we have a go to proceed with propellant load.
[hissing]
[officer 2] Propellant load has started.
[solemn music playing]
[tense music playing]
[alarm blaring]
[thunder rumbling]
[rain pattering]
[launch director] Dragon, SpaceX launch director.
- 2 - D to violate a couple of weather rules
that now do not expect to clear in time for launch.
- Proceed to 2 - D launch abort sequence, please.
[Bob] We copy. We can see some raindrops on the windows,
and it's just part of the deal.
[Mike] Copy all.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Kiko] That's it.
-It's aborted? -[Kiko] Yeah.
It's not our day.
Basically, we've got ten major weather rules,
and three of them are in violation right now.
-Three? -Yeah.
At least eyeballing it, this does not look like we should be stopping launch.
We wanna make sure
we're not scrubbing based on half-hour-old weather.
[man] The measurement's real-time… it's real-time lightning.
-[Elon] Okay. -[man] Yeah.
We just wanna make sure it's real and we're not jumping at shadows.
Okay.
[Kiko] So next launch time is Saturday.
[Elon] Okay.
[Kiko] I… am bummed.
-[chuckling] Yes, I am bummed too. -[Kiko laughing]
I, too, am bummed. Yes.
I am too.
[whirring]
[Mike] Dragon, SpaceX. Thanks for the valiant effort today.
Appreciate your resilience.
[Doug] Yeah, we appreciate those words.
Everybody did great today, and we'll do it again on Saturday.
[woman] Today, we're giving it another shot.
Wednesday's first attempt was postponed due to that wild weather,
but if all goes well today, we will mark a new first
and usher in the commercial-crew era of American spaceflight.
[Doug] To get an actual scrub, it really was almost like a gift.
It was just one last chance
to go through and evaluate and make sure everything's ready to fly.
But from an emotional standpoint, it was extremely difficult.
My son, Jack, was really hit pretty hard when we scrubbed.
Karen said he kind of went and sat in a chair
and just wanted to be by himself.
He kind of gets that there's a lot that can go wrong.
He had already said goodbye to me,
and I… I think he probably didn't wanna have to go through that again.
Hey, buddy, I love you.
You bet. This is gonna be cool.
Be good for Mommy.
See you, buddy.
[Bob] Hey, Theo, you be on good behavior, okay?
And enjoy today. Watch the rocket for me, okay?
I'll call you from the space station.
Okay, you're welcome.
I love you.
To see your parent launch on a rocket
is something that my son hasn't been exposed to.
I needed to figure out a way to prepare him for that.
This is, uh, Tremor.
Tremor is, uh… was actually my son's dinosaur.
I decided to bring Tremor and take him through the entire process,
you know, to make it feel a little bit more normal for my son.
[officer 1] Core and countdown one in T-minus 2 hours and 46 minutes.
The crew has arrived at the White Room. Its ingress is in progress on schedule.
[door closes]
[launch director] Launch Control, clear to retract the axis arm on time.
[whirring]
Crew access arm retract has started.
[indistinct chatter]
[suspenseful music playing]
[hissing]
[launch director] Launch director to countdown net, poll is complete,
and we have a go to proceed with propellant load.
[officer 2] Copy.
[Kiko] What's up, Elon?
Looking a little nicer today.
[Elon] It looks really nice.
-Oh, palo santo. -[Elon] Yeah.
Like it. Anything you can do. [chuckles]
It's for good luck.
Situations like this, you can't have too much luck.
[man] You believe in luck?
[Elon] I believe luck is the best superpower.
[laughing]
If you can have any superpower, luck is the one you'd want.
[tense music playing]
[officer 3] Propellant fills are complete.
Falcon 9 is in startup. Dragon is in countdown.
FTS is armed for launch.
All right.
Holy shit, here we go.
-Here we go. -[Elon sighs]
[launch director] Dragon, SpaceX. Go for launch.
SpaceX, Dragon. We're go for launch. Let's light this candle.
[officer 4] Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one, zero.
-Ignition. Liftoff. -[rumbling]
[inspirational music playing]
[rumbling]
[crowd cheering]
-It's going. -Here we go.
Stage one propulsion is nominal.
Falcon power telemetry nominal.
We're monitoring.
[officer] Vehicle is supersonic
and passing through maximum dynamic pressure.
[Bob] Copy one bravo.
- [launch director] And 1 - D throttle down.
[Doug] Throttling down the Merlin engines.
[Kiko] Standing by for separation.
Dragon copy.
[officer] Stage separation confirmed.
[Kiko] First stage has done its job.
Switch over to the second.
[rumbling]
Second stage ignited.
[Bob] SpaceX, Dragon. Thanks for the great ride to space.
[team cheering]
Congratulations. We just put… we just put astronauts in orbit.
-Incredible. -Yeah!
[team cheering]
Yeah.
Well-done, guys.
[laughing]
-Good work. -[man] That's awesome.
Congrats hug.
That's real, dude. That's space!
[Elon] Wow. It only takes nine minutes to get to orbit.
Nine minutes, and you're going 25 times the speed of sound.
Bob and Doug--
[Elon] Bob and Doug are cool as cucumbers.
[Kiko] Just hanging out. It looks too smooth.
[men laughing]
[Kiko] Two dads.
Dads in space.
[gentle music playing]
[Doug] Well, everyone, kind of a tradition we've had with spacecraft,
going way back to the Mercury era.
We're given the honor to name this capsule.
Without further ado,
we would like to, uh, welcome you aboard Capsule Endeavour.
[Bob] Uh, I'll tell you that for the ride uphill,
while it was a… an exciting ride,
I think we got a… a couple of surprises
just in terms of the way the vehicle is kind of moving
and… and shaking and taking you into orbit.
You can tell that it's, uh…
It's fighting against the Earth as it makes its way into space.
We did, it turns out, end up with one stowaway
on board our, uh, vehicle when we launched today.
I hope both of our sons were super excited to see, uh, their toy
floating around with us on board.
I'm sure they would rather be here, given the opportunity,
but hopefully, they're proud of this as well.
[Doug] So with that, I think it'll be good night from Capsule Endeavour.
Good night, Megan and Theo.
And Karen and Jack.
[excited chatter]
[Elon] Thank you. Congratulations.
[Jim] We can breathe another sigh of relief.
[Elon] Indeed.
[cameraman] You're good there?
-He's left of the pole? Yeah? -[man] I gotcha.
[Jim] So far, everything has performed very, very well,
and we are excited that Bob and Doug are safely in orbit
and on the way to the International Space Station.
[reporter 1] Elon, what would you say to those who doubted SpaceX could do this?
Do you have a message for them?
Do I have a message for those who…
-What? -[Jim] Who doubted you.
Oh, doubted. Okay. I was like, "What did he--?" Okay. Um…
Maybe I just blank out the word "doubt."
[all laughing]
No, I mean, I… To be totally frank, I doubted us too.
When starting SpaceX,
I thought we maybe had a 10% chance of reaching orbit.
But fortunately, fate has smiled upon us and brought us to this day.
[reporter 2] Elon, you said that you had told Bob and Doug's boys
that you'd do everything you can to bring them home safely.
Even with a safe launch out of the way, that must still weigh on you,
and I wondered what it's like as a dad.
[cameras clicking]
[somber music playing]
Um…
So, you know, uh, there's still…
We still gotta dock with Space Station. We still gotta, uh… still gotta return.
I think there's an argument that
the return is more… more dangerous in some ways than the ascent.
So we don't wanna declare victory yet.
Anyway… I'm getting choked up here, so…
It… It's… Really, this…
Yeah, I don't… I'm getting choked up. Sorry.
I'm not sure I can answer the question any more than that except, um…
Yeah, we're gonna do everything we can to make sure it gets home safely.
[adventurous music playing]
[Doug] Well, good morning, everyone, from, uh, Endeavour.
We, uh, had a great night. Got to get a little sleep.
And, uh, as you can see, a beautiful day pass right now.
Getting pretty close to ISS,
uh, as we're flying at about 17,500 miles an hour
around the planet.
[woman] Dragon, SpaceX. Comm check on big loop.
[Doug] SpaceX, Dragon. Loud and clear now on the big loop.
Good morning, Anna.
[Anna] Good morning. Great to hear your voice.
[Doug] It's great to hear yours as well.
We're looking forward to rendezvousing with Space Station today.
[Anna] I am responsible for being Bob and Doug's eyes and ears on the ground
as they approach and then dock with the International Space Station.
My role is to help make sure that they are informed
of anything that's going awry,
and I am forever grateful to be a part of this moment.
One of my fourth-grade teachers was actually the daughter
of one of the astronauts on the Challenger.
She brought our class to NASA,
and from that time on, I knew I wanted to be
a part of space operations.
I still am amazed by how she… she ultimately changed my life,
and I imagine that she changed many other people's lives
as a result of something
that had to have been incredibly painful for her.
Dragon, SpaceX.
Your rendezvous complete time is expected to be 1050 UTC.
[Bob] Copy.
[adventurous music continues]
[Anna] As Dragon is approaching the space station,
it's flying at incredible speeds.
It first does a series of burns
to get it in close proximity to the space station
until the point at which it is basically in a straight line
towards the docking adapter.
The whole time, we are watching our telemetry
and making sure that when it gets to the docking adapter,
it is precisely where it needs to be.
One problem, and it's a collision.
We face that risk, and we deal with that
by being extremely intentional in everything we do.
[man] Space Station on the big loop.
Dragon, tally ho. I know you guys probably see it on the video cameras,
but with the naked eye, we can see it as well.
Looking like a nice, shiny new friend.
Dragon copies. We'll be there in a second.
[Anna] Dragon, SpaceX.
Ground is go for approach initiation.
[Doug] Dragon on the big loop. We copy go.
[tense music playing]
[officer] Dragon, just 400 meters directly below station,
swinging itself up out in front to align itself with the docking adapter.
[Anna] Dragon, SpaceX. Commanding hold.
[Doug] Copy. We will command the hold.
[hissing]
[officer] Dragon holding a little over 17,000 miles an hour,
directly out in front of the space station.
[man] Space Station on the big loop.
Crew on the International Space Station is ready for docking.
[Anna] Dragon, SpaceX. You are go to execute final approach.
[Doug] Copy. Go for docking.
[tense music playing]
[Anna] We are following along with you.
[Doug] One hundred meters away from the space station.
[Anna] You know, as we were approaching the space station,
I remember being extremely focused.
I had a checklist in my mind.
[Bob] We're inside 20 meters.
[Anna] And I remember at one point, we were close to docking,
and I looked up, and I saw Dragon.
I just had this moment of almost pinching myself
that… that I couldn't believe this was happening.
[whooshing]
I told myself this is… this is an incredibly special moment.
[Bob] Three meters to go.
Two meters.
We are inside the hands-off point. One meter to go.
[thudding]
[Anna] Dragon, SpaceX. Docking sequence is complete.
Welcome to the International Space Station.
[team cheering, applauding]
[bell ringing]
[man] Dragon arriving.
The crew of Expedition 63 is honored to welcome
Dragon and the commercial crew program aboard the International Space Station.
Bob and Doug, glad to have you as part of the crew.
[officer] Aboard the International Space Station,
Commander Chris Cassidy standing by in node two.
He does have two crew members on board,
both Russian cosmonauts.
He, uh, recently launched on the same Russian Soyuz spacecraft
just a little more than a month ago.
[whirring]
[Chris] And with that, Endeavour, welcome to the International Space Station.
Please come aboard.
[inspirational music playing]
[inaudible]
[music continues]
[Jim] Station, this is the NASA Administrator. Can you hear me?
We hear you loud and clear, sir.
Welcome to the space station.
[Jim] Thank you, Chris. It's good to see you.
And welcome to Bob and Doug.
I will tell you, the whole world saw this mission,
and we are so, so proud.
I have a… a question for Chris.
Our crew here decided to be about three days late.
You gotta work them overtime, I presume now,
to get them caught up on all the activities that they missed out on.
Well, the day they missed out on was a good one for them to skip.
It was Saturday housecleaning, and I…
But I took care of it for 'em. We'll catch up next… next weekend.
Uh, but in all seriousness,
we're looking forward to some operational stuff later in the month.
Maybe we'll get outside and do some space walks.
So we're… we're all super excited to have two more crewmates
to the Expedition 63 team.
[man] Station, this is James Corden with the CBS Late Late Show.
How are you, gentlemen? Can you hear me?
James.
Welcome aboard the International Space Station.
We heard you loud and clear.
[James] How are you getting on up there? How are you doing? Are you okay?
[Doug] We're doing pretty good.
I think we're assimilating into the, uh, ISS life,
trying to help Chris out as much as we can.
[James] That's great. I'm jealous of both of you right now
because I've spent most of my life wanting to be weightless.
Tell me, what's the best and worst thing
about living life in zero gravity every day?
Oh, look at this.
[laughing]
That's magnificent.
[Doug] You can imagine that there's a lot of places,
like going to the restroom, for example,
where you like stuff to stay where you put it.
And so, uh, we definitely find that frustrating at times.
Time to go.
You take the valve, and, uh…
[clicks, whirring]
That's where your business goes.
[Doug] They have six crew quarters on board the space station,
and those crew quarters are really, really nice.
You've got your laptop in there.
You've got your sleeping bag attached to a wall.
[interviewer] Can you reach down and touch your toes?
You probably would have to fold your computer up,
and then you might be able to kind of do a sit-up,
uh, and not hit both walls.
I mean, it's certainly not huge,
but it's actually kind of…
kind of cozy, if… if I had to be honest.
[woman] What kind of liquids can you drink?
Is there a cocktail hour in space?
Every hour is cocktail hour for, uh…
for astronauts.
Because you can drink balls of fluid right out of the air like that.
I don't know how many of these examples I wanna set for my son,
because he'll be playing with his food all day
if he gets the chance to see something like this.
Chicken.
[Doug] We exercise for about two hours, uh, every day,
with weight lifting and either running or cycling
to maintain our health and our fitness for our return.
[Bob] Our heart,
its most important job is to feed the brain oxygenated blood.
And then when you take the gravity vector out of the picture,
the heart sends too much up to the brain, and your head gets all puffed up.
[Karen] The way your body adapts to weightlessness,
I distinctly remember when I first got to space,
every time I would flip upside down, I felt like I was upside down.
And there was a moment
where I was trying to hang my sleeping bag on the mid-deck wall,
and, just like this, my mind completely changed.
And from that point on, I could be in any orientation,
and I never felt like I was upside down.
It was so neat to me,
the way your body and mind just switch like that.
[Bob] You feel congested
because you still have all this extra volume in your head.
So your sense of smell and your sense of taste are dull.
We have every hot sauce known to humankind.
You pour that on absolutely everything.
[officer] I believe birthday wishes are in order, Bob. Is that true?
[Bob] That's true. I got to join the 50-year-old club,
just like these two other guys.
They've been teasing me all day about it.
[officer] Yeah, I know it's not safe to put 50 candles on a cake
in a high-oxygen environment,
but at least make everybody sing to you.
[Megan] Because I know so well what Bob is doing, I know he's working really hard.
I've had those same experiences,
and I know it's hard to be away from your family.
It was important to us to do something special.
That encouragement from home, I think, is really important,
that we're thinking of him, that we know what he's doing is hard.
You know, the work requires, you know, a lot of dedication,
a lot of focus, a lot of problem-solving, and always a lot of risk.
Can you guys hear me?
- Yeah, loud and clear. -[Doug] Okay.
Check the PTT's off.
Houston air lock on one.
Uh, we're complete
with the, uh, med-ox lab change-out procedure.
Going back to step 15 in 1.225.
[radio beeps]
[Anna] Thanks, Doug, for working the setup so well.
Got us right on timeline. We appreciate it.
Chris and Bob, good morning.
-[Bob] Good morning. -[Chris] Good morning.
[Anna] Okay, with that, we'll step into the post depress.
-[Chris] EV1 copies. -[Bob] EV2 copies.
[Doug] To keep Space Station flying over the Earth,
it's a constant maintenance program.
We do all these space walks
to either add modules to the space station when we were building it.
And now it's to replace pieces of equipment
that either are getting old or that fail.
Our mission is essentially to upgrade the batteries.
You know, the power of the space station is maintained by the battery system.
Through the solar arrays, the batteries are recharged.
And so just like a rechargeable battery at home,
after many years of these cycles,
and then of course the hot and cold
of being in space between daylight and darkness,
those batteries wear out.
It's a big job, because these batteries are like 400 pounds apiece.
Fortunately, we got both Bob and Chris,
two of our best spacewalkers.
-Doing good? -[Bob] Yeah.
During my first two missions, I did six space walks
associated with the construction of the space station.
But even though I've done it a couple of times,
it doesn't get easy for me.
You know, there's a lot of pressure in a situation like that,
that, uh, if you don't do your job, uh, successfully,
I could float off into space.
You have to compartmentalize and take deep breaths
so that you can pace yourself and stay focused
in the face of this daunting task.
[Doug] Hey, Bob, we're ready with the crew lock depress.
We're gonna take the, uh, depress pump power switch to "on."
[Bob] Okay. Depress pump power coming on.
[Doug] Good luck, guys.
[tense music playing]
[music ends]
[Anna] Okay, guys, great job. We're gonna pick up slowly.
[Bob] Yeah.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Anna] Bob, for you, as you get outboard, you're looking for handrail 2075
for your green hook.
[Bob] Copy. 2075.
-It's kind of dark out here, Chris. -[Chris] Yeah, it's kind of dark.
[Bob] How much longer till daylight has me?
[Anna] Approximately three and a half minutes till daylight.
[gentle music playing]
- [Bob] Sun. -[Chris] Here comes the sun again.
[gentle music continues]
[Anna] You should be coming up on the coast of California soon.
If you look south, you might see Hawthorne.
[gentle music continues]
And, Bob, did you wanna go to battery one first?
[Bob] Let's go to battery three first.
[Anna] You'll be going to H1. Confirm socket tape line flush.
Looking for eight turns to release the battery.
[Bob] I have control of the batteries?
[Chris] You have control.
[Doug] Okay, copy that.
Looks good, guys.
[Anna] And we're about to enter a night pass.
[gentle music continues]
Bob, I have several cautions and warnings for you when you're ready.
[Bob] I'm ready.
[Anna] Okay, no sudden movements.
The Bravo 7 torque setting may cause bolt failure.
This could result in a non-captive sharp edge and broken shank.
How copy?
[Bob] Copy all.
Is there any good news about this?
[Chris] Sounds scary, Bob. You sure you wanna do that?
-[Bob] Obviously. -[Chris] Obviously.
[Bob] It looks equal to me on both sides.
[Chris] I agree.
In the indicator, those locked.
[Anna] Copy, such a good install.
Just a heads-up, you're going into a day pass in about a minute.
[Bob] How about a picture?
It's a good location, good time.
[Chris] Yeah.
[Bob] I don't know if we're gonna make it through another day-night cycle.
[Chris] Yeah, that's good.
[Bob] To see the wondrous events that are happening
as you go through a space walk, there's sunrises and sunsets,
you realize, you know, our world is precious,
and you start having appreciation for how little you actually are.
And I think every astronaut kind of feels the same way.
[Megan] As you go around the Earth, you don't see the lines and the borders
that are drawn on maps.
You see the Earth as this one entity,
and it's our home.
You sense its fragility
in this sort of vast blackness of space and this very thin atmosphere
that's what's keeping us all safe.
You feel very protective, I think,
and you feel a very strong connection.
[Doug] Even the most hardened, cynical astronauts, you know,
once they've gone to space, it's changed them and for the better.
You know, you look down, and you go, "We're all on this little ball."
And then you look back into space
and get this overwhelming sense
of, you know, the things we're gonna do next.
[thrilling music playing]
[lunar lander rumbling]
[thuds on ground]
[officer] Okay, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now.
[Neil] That's one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
[astronaut 1] Oh gee, that's great.
[astronaut 2] Yes, indeed.
They've got the flag up now, and you can see the stars and stripes.
[astronaut 1] Beautiful, just beautiful.
[Neil] Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon.
July 1969 AD.
They came in peace for all mankind.
[officer] And welcome home.
[Hans] Landing on the Moon
is singularly the most dramatic event in the history of humanity.
And so this is the leftovers, basically. [laughs]
If you asked what inspired me, this is what inspired me.
-[Bala] Saturn V? -[Hans] Yeah.
I mean, that's what I saw when I was a kid.
This is pretty crazy.
You know how much thrust it had? A million and something?
[Bala] Like the size of that gas generator,
it almost looks like the size of our thrust chamber.
-[Hans] Exactly. -[laughing]
[Hans] Yeah, it's huge.
This is the most powerful rocket that had been built up to date.
[Bala] Yeah, you just need that energy to get--
To the Moon.
-Or to Mars. -Mars, so… [chuckles]
The other thing to recognize is, like, this was all like new stuff
that they had made and, like, didn't have much flight experience on.
I mean, we have, like, 80-something flights.
And we're slowly getting into those flights.
Only now are we confident enough to put Bob and Doug in there. [laughs]
And they tested it twice and said, "Okay, you guys go in there." [laughs]
Yeah.
All right, let's go one step further.
-That's the lunar lander. -[Bala] Yeah.
It looks small, actually.
-I wanna see that inside. -[Bala] Yeah.
They'd be standing up in there, basically.
There's no… no chair or anything.
[Bala] Yeah, and this had the rudiments of digital computers in there.
[Hans] I mean, a computer on this thing,
I don't think there's anything comparable that we have.
-A car key is probably smarter. -Yeah.
[both laughing]
But, I mean, they made it work.
-I mean, that's the main thing. -That's the fascinating thing.
Even more dramatic when you think that what they had
in terms of electronics to make that work.
Yeah.
[Hans] Pretty inspiring coming back here and just looking at it.
Now that we've shown that we can fly astronauts…
[indistinct chatter]
…it's time to go back to the Moon with astronauts again for a longer time
and extend our range to Mars.
[Elon] These super smart, super talented people,
they believe in the goal.
A base on the Moon and a city on Mars can happen.
I was not sure whether such a path existed before.
Now I am confident that such a path exists.
But first, we got a real important mission tomorrow.
[officer] Good morning, Bob and Doug.
We have a special message for you to start your day.
[Theo] Rise and shine, Daddy. We love you.
We can't wait to see you. Wake up, wake up!
[Jack] I'm happy you went into space,
but I'm even happier that you're coming back home.
[Theo] Hurry home so we can go get my dog.
[Jack] We love you, Dad.
[shutter clicks]
[Bob] We're about to embark on the final portion of the journey.
And as I look forward to heading back home,
my son and Doug's son are really excited not only to get their fathers back
but to get our Apatosaurus, our zero-G indicator,
that they nominated to go with us.
And so for Jack and Theo,
uh, Tremor the Apatosaurus is, uh, headed home soon.
[Megan] Reentry is obviously the next big milestone,
and so everything has to work really, really well.
[Anna] Dragon, SpaceX. Comm check.
[Doug] SpaceX, Dragon. Comm checks. Dragon to ground.
[Megan] It's hard to prepare yourself.
You don't know exactly what you're gonna feel.
But there's a part of you that can't let go
of that sort of, you know, hopefully irrational fear
that something could go wrong.
[Anna] The final reconfigurations for undock
are complete and nominal.
[Megan] Am I gonna be nervous? Absolutely.
But I want my son to experience the joy and excitement of that moment
and try to keep all of the… the nervousness to myself.
[Anna] The ground is go for undocking.
Please confirm your visors are down
and that you are ready for undock and departure.
[Doug] Our visors are down, and we're ready for departure.
[rumbling]
[Anna] Dragon, SpaceX. Separation confirmed.
[Chris] Endeavour, Station. Bob and Doug,
it's been an honor to serve with you.
Safe travels and have a successful landing.
Godspeed.
Endeavour copies all. Thanks, Chris.
Bob and I, we're just excited to get back home.
But you can never let your guard down, especially on a first flight.
You know, you really have to do the whole mission end to end.
There was a time when we thought,
"Well, we just get through the ascent, and we'll be fine."
But then we had Columbia.
[ominous music playing]
[flight director] Everything look good to you?
Control and rates and everything is nominal, right?
[officer] Control has been stable. We have good trims.
-I don't see anything out of the ordinary. -[flight director] Okay.
[astronaut 1] This is amazing. It's really getting fairly bright out there.
[astronaut 2] Yeah, you definitely don't want to be outside now.
[laughing]
[Doug] Both Bob and I were on the runway where the shuttle would be landing.
I remember them knocking on the window
and saying to us that they'd lost, uh, comm,
uh, and data and tracking from Columbia.
[officer 1] Columbia, Houston, comm check.
Columbia, Houston, UHF comm check.
[officer 2] We do not have any valid data at this time.
[tense music playing]
-[crowd clamoring] -[woman] Oh my God.
[news anchor] We've got some breaking news.
There you see what appears to be multiple pieces of the shuttle.
We can only hope that what we're seeing is not the worst.
[Doug] When landing time came and the shuttle didn't come,
we were there in the room
when they told the families what they think had happened
and that it was likely not survivable
and that they were, you know, gonna do the best they could,
but when the vehicle broke up at 200, 250,000 feet,
that it's not likely that anybody survived.
[somber music playing]
Just seeing the pieces of Columbia,
pieces of the crew module and helmets and those kinds of things,
you know, that… that leaves an impression that I think you never ever…
you never really get over.
When you lose a rocket with a payload on it,
that is a bad situation.
But if you lose a rocket with a crew on it,
that… that is an order of magnitude different.
And in the end, you don't want anybody to ever have to go through that again.
[exhales]
[Kiko] We have been preparing for Bob and Doug to come home.
You know, as soon as that capsule released,
uh, and we undocked,
the nerves popped up again,
the general feeling of like, "Oh man, we're in free flight."
And these boys are coming home. It's happening.
Um, there's no turning back at this point.
So… it's time to rock and roll,
talk to the recovery dudes, and… and get Bob and Doug home.
[male host] Everything's been going very smoothly for Bob and Doug
ever since they undocked from the space station yesterday.
Now just ready and waiting to begin the reentry process.
[Jessie] Yeah, really exciting day as we approach splashdown here
in a matter of a few hours…
[Hans] I've gotta talk to these two guys.
[Jessie] …to think that this all started two months ago, and here we are.
-[Hans] Did you get some sleep? -[man] Yeah. A few hours.
-[Hans] A few hours? -[man laughs] Yeah.
-[Hans] How's everything looking? -[man] Ready to go.
Yeah, everything's looking great. Dragon's in good shape.
[Hans] All right, good luck.
-Good luck. -[man] All right, good luck.
[Hans] Oh, look at that.
They seem super calm.
I guess it doesn't go over well when they're nervous. [laughs]
Actually, you can see they're nervous. They do this… [laughs]
You know, every once in a while. [laughs]
I think reentry is the part that everybody hates.
[tense music playing]
You're in a stable orbit around the Earth,
and then you do a reentry burn.
That's a thrust maneuver that reduces your velocity
so that you start descending
until you hit dense atmosphere
and you can't get a radio signal out anymore.
It's called "blackout."
For a few minutes, you're in the dark on the ground,
and you have no idea what happens.
Okay, blackout here is 18:36,
and you land at 48.
So that's 12 minutes before we land, is the blackout.
[Bala] What altitude is that?
-A hundred and five? -[Hans] So…
[Bala] A hundred and ninety-five kilometers?
-Does that sound too high? -Uh, it does sound a little bit high.
-Found it? -[Bala] Yeah.
Forty-seven.
-[Hans] Okay, fifty. -[Bala] Fifty. Okay.
[Hans] So it happens between 50 and 30 kilometers.
That means you fall from 30 kilometers to six kilometers in two minutes?
-[Bala] That's crazy. -[Hans] That seems crazy fast, man.
[both laughing]
-[Bala] Yeah. -[Hans] Remarkable.
You're moving at high speed, and you're using the atmosphere to brake.
It's a lot of energy.
It gets hot on the outside,
and on the inside, you see the fire flying by the window.
You need a heat shield that is perfect.
And after you get through the atmosphere, you still have to deploy the parachutes.
They come out, then two minutes later, you deploy the chutes. It's pretty quick.
[Bala] In my mind, it's probably the parachutes
that are the most significant thing that needs to work.
In spite of all the testing we've done, that's still one of the riskiest parts.
[Hans] Right.
[Bala] And, you know, we haven't had a splashdown since the Apollo program.
[Hans] Yeah.
[officer] Dragon, SpaceX for entry brief.
[Bob] Go ahead.
The recovery team is go, and the weather is great,
and your vehicle is still looking really good for entry.
No health issues at this time.
-[Bob] Copy. -[beeping]
[Elon] How long until they hit the atmosphere?
[Hans] They go into the sequence in five minutes.
I'm actually here for the deorbit burn.
To make sure that goes well.
-Deorbit burn's coming up now? -[Hans] Yeah.
[Elon] Ah.
[Hans] Well…
Everything's looking good, I think.
Yeah, well, it certainly has been quite a journey.
[Hans] Crazy. Here we are, right?
[Elon] Yes, 18 years.
-[Hans] Are you nervous? -[Elon] Yeah, I am.
[suspenseful music playing]
[officer] Dragon, SpaceX. Deorbit burn start.
[Bob] We copy. Go.
[rumbling]
[man] Cool as a cucumber, because they're not breathing very heavy,
'cause their CO2's not going up.
-[Hans] That's good. -[man] Yeah.
[officer] Dragon, SpaceX. Deorbit burn complete.
Performance nominal.
Nose cone closure initiated.
All right, boys.
[officer] Brace for entry.
[Bob] Copy.
[Kiko] All right.
Here we go.
[music intensifies]
[Hans] Four G's. That's moving.
Almost like a little comet.
[rumbling]
[officer] Dragon, SpaceX. We show two minutes until predicted comm blackout.
We will see you on the other side at 18:42.
[Bob] Dragon copy, 18:42.
[Kiko] Okay, we're in blackout.
[officer] Dragon, SpaceX. Comm check.
[suspenseful music playing]
Dragon, SpaceX. Comm check.
[Kiko] Jesus, dude. This thing is so long.
[officer] Dragon, SpaceX. Comm check.
[suspenseful music continues]
Dragon, SpaceX. Comm check.
[Kiko] Come on, where is it?
Let's find that puppy.
[clicking tongue] Oh. [sputtering]
Oh!
Oh, there it is.
[dramatic music playing]
[officer] Dragon, SpaceX. Comm check.
[Bob] Copy, I heard you loud and clear. We're about 3.9 G's.
[officer] Copy, we've got you.
-[Kiko] All right. -[man 1] Hell yeah.
[man 2] Coming in hot.
[rumbling]
[officer] Passing 15 kilometers, brace for drogue window.
[Bob] Copy, we're braced.
[Kiko] Come on, baby.
[breathes deeply]
[pops]
[officer] Visual, two drogues out.
[Bob] Oh yeah, we felt it.
[Kiko] Slow down, baby.
[officer] Drogue descent rate nominal.
-[Kiko] Nice. -[clapping]
Yep.
All right.
Let's get these mains out.
[pops]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Kiko] Inflate, baby.
Inflate.
Come on.
Come on, come on, come on, come on.
[officer] We are visual on four chutes out.
-[man 1] Ooh. -[man 2] Yeah.
[Kiko] Hold on. Almost down to the ground.
[officer] Main chute decent rate nominal.
Passing through 700 meters.
[Hans] And we're back to seven meters per second. Nothing.
It's, like, sitting there.
Boom.
Slowing.
[inspirational music playing]
[officer] Six hundred meters.
Six hundred meters.
Two hundred meters.
We are braced for splashdown.
[man] Copy. Brace for splashdown.
-All right! Whoo! -[all applauding]
[all cheering]
[officer] Welcome back to planet Earth, and thanks for flying SpaceX.
[team laughing]
[Kiko] Hell yeah!
Yeah!
All right.
Everything's good?
[Hans] Everything was great. This was super smooth.
Okay.
[Kiko] Are there small boats out there?
That doesn't look like a 45-footer to me. That looks like a…
Now there's a… Who the hell is this?
-[Hans] It's a boat there. Not ours. -[Elon] Oh, it's someone else?
[Hans] Not ours. Yeah, these are not our boats.
-[Elon] Who is that? Just random people? -[Hans] Just random people.
[team laughing]
-[man] They're just like-- -Oh my gosh.
Look at this, dude, just like fucking 30 jabroni boats
just show up out of nowhere.
[chuckling] You got a front-row seat.
[officer] Dragon, SpaceX. Stand by for side hatch opening and egress.
[Bob] Copy. We're ready.
[man] What's up, fellas?
[crew cheering]
[host] All right, so they're getting set up.
They're gonna work to get Bob Behnken,
the joint operations commander for this mission, out of the capsule now.
[Jessie] We got a thumbs-up,
indicating that things are going well.
[host] And now spacecraft commander Doug Hurley
making his way out of the capsule.
There we go. Another thumbs-up.
[all applauding]
-[cork pops] -[Kiko] Whoo!
-Don. -[Don] Thank you.
[Gwynne] Will you have some?
Yeah! Whoo!
Here's to happiness and to Bob and Doug safely home.
No doubt.
Whoo!
[gentle music playing]
[Doug] It had been a couple of months since we had launched,
so I was just really excited to see my family.
But first, we were going to do a little bit of a press event.
[crowd cheering]
Six-year-olds, you know, they didn't have him in handcuffs or anything,
so he broke free and ran to me at the airplane.
It was just awesome to see him.
[cheering continues]
I'm glad I didn't fall down the steps
when he tried to tackle me at the base of the stairs.
All right, um, we're not gonna stand right now.
For those of you who have done this before,
you know it's not pleasant standing for a few hours after you get back.
Five hours ago, we were in a spaceship bobbing around,
making prank satellite phone calls to whoever we could get ahold of.
[people laughing]
You know, this has been a, uh…
quite an odyssey the last five years
since Bob and I started working on this program.
And to be where we are now,
the first crewed flight of Dragon,
is just unbelievable.
There's something special about having that capability
to launch and… and bring your own astronauts home.
I just wanna thank you all for coming out today
and celebrating what was accomplished.
-Thank you, all. -[crowd applauding, cheering]
[Elon] Whoo-hoo! Yeah.
[chuckling]
After these great words that were spoken,
um, I… I'm not sure I have much to add.
I mean, I really came here
'cause I just wanted to see Bob and Doug, to be totally frank.
Like, my entire adrenaline, it was just dumped, you know.
[laughing] It's like…
Like, "Thank God." [huffs]
You know?
You know, I think this is an achievement of humanity,
and… and I think the whole world can look at this as a new era.
We're gonna have a base on the Moon,
and we're gonna have… send people to Mars.
Have… and make life multi-planetary.
And I think this… this day heralds a new age of space exploration.
[thrilling music playing]
[woman 1] You're looking at the Crew Dragon spacecraft
and Falcon 9 rocket
set to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station
on a six-month science mission.
This crew is about to fly in the exact same capsule
that first flew NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley
in last year's Demo-2 test flight.
[inaudible]
This is the second crew to fly on a commercial spacecraft
for this new era of human spaceflight.
[crowd cheering]
[woman 1] And here they come, the Crew-2 astronauts
taking their first steps outside before their journey to space.
[man] Yay!
[Theo] Hey, Mommy!
[cameras clicking]
[woman 1] Pilot Megan McArthur in the front.
Hi, buddy!
[Theo] Hey, Mommy, I love you.
[woman 2] Looks like Bob Behnken is there with their son.
They are a power couple, and I love it. [laughs]
[Bob] Now it's time for Megan's mission.
It's super exciting for us
that she's gonna be able to ride the same Dragon capsule.
And so I need to step in in the backup role
and flip-flop and make sure our son Theo gets everything he needs.
[Theo] See you in six months.
See you in six months. I'm gonna miss you.
[Megan] My husband flew the Crew Dragon last year
and happened to be in the same seat that I'll be in.
This time it's Mom's turn, and I'm gonna be up there for six months.
[crowd cheering]
[Megan] As our son gets older,
he's starting to build an awareness of what it is that we do.
We want him to understand
we think it's important to explore and to push the boundaries
of what we're capable of.
[woman 1] The crew now on their way - to Launch Complex 39 - A,
ready for their ride to the space station.
I embrace this dawn of this age of commercialization of space.
Our mission proved that we could get humans in the low Earth orbit
and kind of planted the seed for how we're gonna go beyond that.
[helicopter blades whirring]
[Bob] As we go forward, we wanna accomplish all those missions
that help us understand what's out there,
but at the same time,
we have to figure out the smart way
to take care of the resources and our solar system
and not trash Mars when the opportunity presents itself.
[Doug] Of course, there will be questions and challenges,
like how we're gonna govern something like that.
But if we can continue to get people into space,
I can't imagine it doesn't make us better.
[officer] Elon, are you go?
[Elon] Absolutely.
[officer] MJ, we're here. We just spoke to Elon. He's ready to go.
[Elon] We should think more about, what's the future we want?
What has the happy ending?
For me, it's, you know, making sure we become a spacefaring civilization.
[officer] Dragon, SpaceX. You are go for launch.
[Elon] But it's very important to appreciate this is not inevitable.
[whirring]
People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves.
It does not automatically improve.
If you look at great civilizations like ancient Egypt,
and they were able to make the pyramids, and they forgot how to do that.
And the Romans, they built these incredible aqueducts.
They forgot how to do it.
In 1969, we were able to send somebody to the Moon,
and we forgot how to do that.
[officer 1] T-minus 15 seconds.
[Elon] The window of opportunity is open right now
to make life multi-planetary.
But we cannot count on it being open for a long time.
[officer 1] Ten, nine, eight, seven…
[Elon] We need to take advantage of that window while it is open.
[officer 1] …four, three, two, one.
[rumbling]
[officer 2] Endeavour launches once again.
Four astronauts from three countries on Crew-2
now making their way to the one and only International Space Station.
[officer 3] Crew Dragon flying free.
[team cheering]
[inspirational music playing]
["Starman" by Sharon Van Etten playing]
♪ There's a starman waiting in the sky ♪
♪ He'd like to come and meet us ♪
♪ But he thinks he'd blow our minds ♪
♪ There's a starman waiting in the sky ♪
♪ He's told us not to blow it ♪
♪ 'Cause he knows it's all worthwhile ♪
♪ He told me Let the children lose it ♪
♪ Let the children use it ♪
♪ Let all the children boogie ♪