NASA & SpaceX: Journey to the Future (2020) - full transcript
A behind-the-scenes look at the teams of SpaceX engineers, NASA employees and scientists as they prepare for a commercial flight mission to the International Space Station.
Narrator: American astronauts have
not flown to space from u.S. Soil
in nearly 10 years.
That is about to change.
The united states
is a nation of explorers.
It's something that
fundamentally appeals
to our psyche.
Narrator:
This is an experiment to see
if an innovative private company
such as spacex
can fly nasa astronauts
and reinvigorate
space exploration.
It's an honor to be not
only representing nasa,
but spacex as well
in this next step
of space exploration.
♪
Musk: The scary thing to be
launching people, you know,
and risk is never zero.
Sometimes things do blow up.
Space is hard.
How do you manage
telling your son
that you're facing that risk
as you go forward?
Narrator: The second golden age
of space travel begins now.
♪
♪
Man: T-minus three,
two, one, zero.
Ignition.
♪
♪
♪
captions paid for by
discovery communications
♪
♪
We're able to get
the moon in '69,
and that was only 66 years
from first flight from orville
and wilbur wright's
first flight.
It was 1903. It was the first
controlled powered flight.
Only 66 years later,
landing on the moon.
That's incredible.
♪
♪
Even though it was only a few
people that did it, vicariously,
we all went to the moon.
Humanity went to the moon,
and it was
the greatest accomplishment
of human civilization.
♪
You know, but it's been
now 51 years
since that first landing,
and no one has the ability
to land on the moon.
Narrator:
The apollo era ended in triumph
and nasa looked forward
to a bright future
with its new program,
the space shuttle.
♪
♪
However, after 30 years,
133 successful missions...
And two catastrophic
disasters...
Man: Obviously
a major malfunction.
Narrator: The space shuttle
program ended in 2011.
Man: The space shuttle pulls
into port for the last time.
Narrator: Nasa's days of flying
people to space seem to be over.
They relied
on russian soyuz rockets
to get astronauts
to the space station.
If you'd asked for in '69
that were said by 2020,
we would have had
no hotels on pluto.
They wouldn't have
thought that in 2020
that the united states
hadn't been able to send people
to orbit for nine years.
And so basically,
we cannot be complacent
about technology development.
We have to really
drive innovation hard.
♪
Narrator: Eight years later,
the head of nasa
administrator jim bridenstine,
has traveled
from washington, d.C.
To make
an important announcement
about the future
of space travel.
- Hey. Good to see you.
- You, too.
You doing alright? Yeah.
Excellent.
He is joined by elon musk,
the visionary and at times
controversial founder
and chief engineer of spacex.
This announcement is the result
of nasa's
radical new partnership
with the private sector called
the commercial crew program.
Thank you for coming
to spacex today
in hawthorne, california.
The highest priority
is launching american astronauts
on american rockets
from american soil.
We are on the cusp
of making that a reality.
There's a lot of negativity,
you know,
especially these days,
it would be great
to have something positive
that perhaps can unite
the country or the world,
and advancement in space
is one of those things.
That is the reason
that spacex was created.
The launch of a crew
is something
that we've been working
towards for 17 years.
Narrator: Journalist christian
davenport covers
defense and space
for the "washington post,"
has been on the frontlines
reporting
on the commercial crew program
since its inception in 2010.
This is sort of, in some ways,
an experiment
to see if nasa can rely
on these commercial partners
to fly their astronauts safely.
Narrator: Nasa astronauts
doug hurley
and bob behnken will be
the first to launch
on spacex's
inaugural crewed flight,
marking the first time
in history
that nasa astronauts will fly
on privately owned spacecraft.
This first flight with crew
is a test flight.
Even the flight itself
is a test flight,
and it is done with test pilots
work for nasa,
who will be evaluating
the system itself.
And elon and I
in strong agreement
that whatever it takes
to make sure they are safe
is what we are focused on
like a laser.
[ Applause ]
Narrator: Before spacex
can launch,
crew to major milestones
must be completed without crew.
The first is the
demonstration one mission
or demo 1
in which spacex
must autonomously fly
their crew dragon capsule
to the international
space station and back.
The second test is called
the launch escape test,
also known
as the in-flight abort test.
If the rocket fails,
the dragon capsules emergency
abort system is triggered,
ejecting the capsule safely away
from the rocket.
Then there is the third
and final test
called the demonstration
two mission or demo 2,
which will launch
nasa astronauts
bob and doug
to the space station.
Bridenstine: When we think about
the history of human spaceflight,
it's always been
government owned,
government operated systems.
So the commercial crew program
is our way of commercializing
human spaceflight.
Narrator: Robert cabana is
a former astronaut
and the director
of the kennedy space center
in cape canaveral, florida.
The idea is to not have
to own the vehicles.
We buy a service.
We buy a taxi ride the space
to do what we need.
We have two separate vehicles.
One spacex, one boeing.
Bridenstine: When you have
multiple providers
that are competing
against each other,
they don't keep coming back
to the taxpayer
asking for more money.
We'd like to have access
to space be so low cost
that industry is sending
workers to space
in a way that's going to be
transformative for humankind.
Narrator: When a commercial crew
program was first proposed,
there were doubts about
whether it could work.
Many worry that privatization
would lead to decreased
oversight,
accountability and less revenue
for the government.
You know, we really are in
another golden age, if you will.
It's neat to see
and it's neat to be, you know,
maybe what you would argue as it
is the ground floor of that now
with commercial crew
and what we're doing for spacex.
Here with a commercial
crew program,
you've got two new capsules.
The boeing starliner
and the space x crew dragon.
New technology, new innovation
going into them.
They're autonomous.
They have the ability to fly to
the international space station,
meet up at the space station
in orbit
and autonomously dock with it.
It's like a self-driving car
that can park itself.
And that's a new technology
that we haven't seen before.
Narrator: In 2014,
nasa's commercial
crew program awarded spacex,
a $2.6 billion dollar contract.
After nearly a decade
of designing
and testing
their new spacecraft,
spacex will be
the first private company
to launch nasa astronauts.
I'm pretty excited about
being on the first flight
of a new spacecraft,
and it's awesome to work
with the spacex team.
You know, it's just a just
a wonderful place to be.
I couldn't I dreamed for
a greater opportunity than this.
♪
Spacex is a hugely
ambitious company
founded by tech entrepreneur
elon musk in 2002,
ultimately with the goal
of trying to colonize mars.
We want the exciting things
that we see in sci-fi,
like sci-fi movies and books.
We want that
to come true one day.
We're making stuff real.
In fact, I think hardly anyone
in the public
knows if this is happening.
I gather you get
this message across,
like really cool
search happening.
You know, tune in.
Davenport: But for all of the
triumphs and all the successes,
all the attention that a company
like spacex gets,
they have not flown
humans before.
That's a huge responsibility.
Nasa's astronauts
for their pride and joy.
They're national heroes,
and their lives
are being entrusted
with these companies.
So we're going to see
if they can pass that test.
♪
Narrator: Today's launch marks
the beginning
of the crew dragon
demo 1 mission.
This is one of spacex's
most challenging milestones yet,
a five day unscrewed journey
to the international space
station and back.
Davenport: Before nasa allows
boeing and spacex
to fly their astronauts,
they require the companies
to first do a test flight
without crews
onboard the spacecraft.
That's to make sure that these
companies can get the capsules
to the space station
and back safely.
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
Reed: The demonstration one
mission or the demo 1 mission
is an unproved flight.
We're sending
the dragon autonomously
to space station to dock
and come home.
We're gonna be in firing room
four for the launch itself,
listening along with a team
and kind of keying on the things
that would be relatively
important to us.
Really is our chance
to not be on board,
but be with the rest of the team
that will support us
when we actually
fly this vehicle
when demo 2 comes around.
♪
Narrator: This is the first
flight of spacex's new
crew dragon capsule, which will
one day carry astronauts.
It sits atop the spacex
falcon nine rocket.
It's 16 feet tall,
13 feet in diameter
and can carry up
to seven people.
This mission will test
all the systems
required to keep passengers
alive in the vacuum of space.
We spent years designing and
testing of the vehicle systems.
That day is really the day
that the rubber meets the road.
We fly the vehicle,
we test the interfaces
of the rocket of the spacecraft
and make sure
that it'll work the way
we think it's going to work.
I mean,
the sheer number of tests
that have occurred
for dragon and falcon
is staggering to think about.
I mean, cumulatively,
must be tens of thousands
of tests of one kind or another.
Narrator: Everything is riding
on the success of this mission.
And if it fails, it's back
to the drawing board
before spacex will
be allowed to launch
nasa astronauts to
the international space station.
One measure of success
is how well nasa
and spacex
personnel work together
across the country.
The dragon capsule is monitored
by spacex mission control
in hawthorne, california.
The international space
station is supervised
by nasa in houston,
and the launch
of the falcon rocket
is conducted by spacex
in firing room four
at kennedy space center
in florida.
Nasa administrator
jim bridenstine
waits along
with countless spectators
in anticipation
of this historic launch.
What's fascinating is
the level of public interest
and uncrewed test flight.
I've not seen those
since the space shuttles.
It's an amazing day.
Narrator: For elon musk
and the team at spacex,
the stakes are incredibly high.
Failure could be a huge setback.
Not just for spacex
and the commercial crew program,
but for human space exploration.
♪
Man: Go for lunch.
Narrator: At kennedy space center
in cape canaveral, florida,
spacex and nasa are seconds away
from the historic first
test flight
of spacex's new crew
dragon capsule
woman: Five,
four, three, two, one, zero.
Ignition, lift off.
♪
♪
Why energy in a rocket?
You know, you're basically
putting enough energy
into a spacecraft such that
it could look like a meteor.
It's just like it's difficult
for people to even comprehend.
♪
♪
Man: Power and telemetry normal.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪
♪
Behnken: Being able to watch
the demo 1 mission
head up to
the international space station
was pretty exciting for us.
Part of it was that
we were seeing a test flight
that needed to happen
before we were gonna get
our chance
to go to space station.
♪
It's a myriad of emotions
because you're looking at
all the different things
that could possibly happen
during those missions,
and you're excited about
seeing it be completed
successfully.
Narrator: The falcon 9 rocket
is composed of two parts,
the first stage
and the second stage.
A rocket sheds wait
as it climbs higher.
Once the falcon 9 first stage
uses up all of its fuel,
it is no longer needed
and separates, making
the entire system lighter.
Then after the second stage
use up all of its fuel,
it also separates, releasing
the dragon capsule into orbit.
♪
Man: Stage separation confirmed.
Matthews: The falcon 9
first stage is separating
from the falcon 9 second stage.
Once the first stage
of falcon 9 has separated
from the second stage,
it's done its job.
Its primary mission
is to get the second stage
on its way with dragon
to the space station.
We do have a secondary objective
for the first stage
of the falcon rocket,
which is to come back
from orbit and land.
Narrator: The norm has always
been to let the first stage
fall back to earth
and crash into the ocean.
But spacex has invented
the first and only
reusable orbital class rocket,
which can fly itself
back to earth and land
so it can be reused
multiple times.
Matthews: For the first stage,
it starts its engines back up.
It flips itself around,
and the whole four stages
reentering
the earth's atmosphere
and slowly making
its way back down
for a landing on a drone ship
that is out
in the atlantic ocean.
♪
Man: Landing lights deployed
and falcon 9 has landed.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪
♪
Narrator: After the first stage,
separation is complete.
The crew dragon capsule
is propelled into orbit
by the second stage.
Matthews: The second stage
is lighting up its engine
and it's taking the dragon
spacecraft into orbit.
Once the second stage
successfully gets dragon
into the orbit
that it is intended to go,
its separate dragon
and moves away.
Narrator:
This is a pivotal moment.
The separation of the second
stage from the dragon capsule
is the final step
of the launch sequence.
Man:
Dragon separation confirmed.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪
♪
♪
Narrator: The crew dragon
is now on track to dock
to the international
space station.
Bridenstine: It's amazing.
This is a game changer.
Now, let me be clear.
This is the beginning.
This is the first quarter
of a long football game
that's five days long.
I'm not going to be overexcited
at this point.
Five more days.
Even though dragon is able
to autonomously only fly,
there actually was somebody
inside the capsule.
And it's basically what you call
an anthropomorphic test device.
The passenger for this uncrewed
launch is named ripley.
She is equipped
and wired with sensors
that are going to tell us
about her experience.
So during launch, she's going to
experience different g forces.
And we want to make sure
those are safe
for future crewed missions.
And we've done a lot to predict
what that's going to be like,
and we want to be 100 percent
sure that our predictions
are consistent with the flight
that she is going on.
What really matters
is the direction
that those gs
are going through your body.
We try to put all the gs
through the chest
because they can tolerate
a lot more.
So if you're dropping sort
of like bungee jumping,
it could be going up
and down your head.
That's not as good
as if it's going
straight through your chest
and you're accelerating
in a car.
♪
Rendezvous is the complex ballet
where a spacecraft goes from,
where the launch vehicle
leaves it in space
to docking to
the international space station.
Narrator: Robert dempsey is
one of nasa's flight directors
for the international
space station.
He works with teams responsible
for this phase of the mission
called rendezvous and docking.
Dempsey: The launch vehicle
places it in orbit.
That's low earth orbit.
It's actually fairly below
and behind
the international space station.
And it'll perform a number
of burns or maneuvers
where it will catch up
to the space station.
And you can think of rendezvous
is kind of like a case
where a police officer,
for example,
was sitting by the side
of the road
and a speeding car
comes zooming by.
And what he will do
is the police officer
will then go from zero
and immediately start
to accelerate towards that car.
It's got to match that speed.
And eventually when it catches
up to it, it's got to slow down.
If it goes too fast, it's going
to go past the speeder.
If it doesn't go fast enough,
it'll eventually not be able
to catch that speeder.
So it's the same
sort of process.
This is a fairly
critical operation
because this is the first time
this vehicle has ever flown.
And we want to make sure
it does not collide
with the space station.
Narrator: A little over 24 hours
after launch,
spacex's crew dragon capsule
autonomously flies itself
to the international
space station.
Now begins the critical
docking procedure.
It requires
meticulous communication
between spacex mission control
in hawthorne, california,
nasa mission control
at johnson space center
in houston, texas,
as well as
the one american astronaut
and two russian cosmonauts
onboard the international
space station.
This is the first time
that a commercial vehicle
will dock to the space station.
It's also the first use of the
international docking adapter,
which is the port
on space station
where commercial vehicles
are going to come up and dock.
And so we'll see both sides
get used for the first time.
Woman: The station is ready
for the crew.
Petrzelka: The crew dragon
spacecraft uses an automated system
that is able to sense the
position of the space station
relative to the capsule
and is able to guide the capsule
into dock with station.
Ultimately, the vehicles
are fundamentally flying itself.
But we also have ground control,
who's monitoring it
and setting up
a certain amount of commands.
There's also a certain amount
of access that people
in the space station.
They can see what's
happening on dragon
and are in contact with the
ground control at the same time.
Woman: Monitor approach.
Orientation as expected.
Vehicle is in the corridor,
performing [indistinct]
At this point in time,
we actually take a little pause.
We stop within about
20 meters of the docking port.
That's on
the international space station.
- Hold, command center.
- Copy hold.
Dragon hold confirmed.
Matthews: And then
the engineers at both nasa
and spacex reviewed the data
from the spacecraft they took.
They make sure that everything
is going according to plan
and they're both happy.
Woman #1: Please command that
docking lights are on.
Woman #2: Copy, command.
Docking lights are on.
Then dragon is allowed
at that point
to autonomously move forward
with the approach and docking
to the space station.
- Dragon is resuming approach.
- Copy.
Petrzelka: The crew dragon
spacecraft uses it 16 draco thrusters
to maneuver into contact
with the space station
docking adapter.
Woman: Frank is decreasing,
vehicle is centered.
The capsule inches in
towards the station.
Woman: Vehicles in the corridor.
- Orientation as expected.
- Copy.
Dempsey: The mood inside mission
control for a first time docking
of a new vehicle
is always a bit stressful.
Now we've spent years
planning and training
and preparing for it,
but space has always had
a way of showing us
things can surprise us.
Crew dragon has a variety
of safeties in place,
so that should anything
go off nominal,
the capsule will
automatically retreat
and keep the station safe.
Woman #1: All video and overlays
look nominal
all status fields
are showing expected status.
Woman #2: And we copy.
Musk: You got to dock
with the space station.
And if something goes wrong,
you're just in the void of space
and you're in a vacuum
with nothing.
We got the space suits,
we've got a lot
of backup systems,
but it's still
a dicey situation.
Woman: Dragon is go for docking.
Narrator: This is the first
ever attempt by the crew dragon
to track the iss
and move in for what
must be a perfect,
airtight lock.
Narrator: After a successful
launch into space
and separation
from the falcon 9 rocket,
teams at spacex headquarters
and nasa mission control
closely monitor
the crew dragon capsule
as it faces
its toughest test yet,
a critical first time docking
with the international
space station.
If everything goes perfectly
as expected,
we'll just be monitoring,
making sure
everything goes right.
Woman: Dragon is presuming
approach and is go for docking.
The station crew
is ready for docking.
This is the first time
that a commercial vehicle
is autonomously docked
to the space station.
Woman: Vehicle motors approach
to dock port.
Primary range is decreasing.
Vehicle is centered.
♪
♪
Capture confirmed.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪
Watching the demo-1 vehicle dock
with the space station
was amazing.
It was kind of terrifying,
and it should be.
These are the first time
you do something.
You should be pretty worried
about how it's going to go.
And it was amazing.
Proceeding to open the hatch.
On behalf of ripley,
little earth
and myself and our crew,
welcome to the crew dragon.
Welcome to the new era
in space flight.
♪
During the unscrewed mission,
dragon stayed docked with
the space station for five days.
That was to allow the team
on the ground
to observe and monitor
the vehicle performance
and for the crew aboard
the international space station
to work with the vehicle
and understand
how it was going to interact
with the space station.
♪
Narrator: Now the testing
of the dragon is complete.
It's time for it to undock
and return to earth.
At that point, the international
space station crew,
they reverse the steps
that they went through
when dragon arrived.
So that means they close
the hatch on dragon first
and then they closed the hatch
on the international
space station.
The ground control team
sent a command for dragon
to undock from space station.
♪
♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪
- Dragon is in the corridor.
- Copy.
It takes about six hours
for dragon
once it leaves
the space station to come home
and splashdown
in the atlantic ocean.
Dempsey: The mission is not over
until the astronauts lands
safely on the earth.
It's not until then that we can
breathe a sigh of relief
and call the mission a success.
We came out to see
the splashdown
as well and understand
what the recovery team
was going to go through,
and so that was pretty exciting.
Matthews: The recovery team
is already waiting
and ready to go
get dragon out of the water.
Petrzelka: The 16 draco
thrusters are responsible
for orienting the vehicle
in the correct direction.
They fire to slow the vehicle
down to the point
that it will come out of orbit
and begin to reenter
the atmosphere.
Narrator: Reentry is one of the most
dangerous points in the mission.
There is no way to stop reentry
once it starts.
All the spacex and nasa crews
must wait and hope for the best.
♪
Traveling at about
17,000 miles per hour.
When dragon hits the atmosphere,
its heat shield will be
put to the test
as the vehicle is enveloped
in a giant hypersonic fireball.
The atmosphere does
the majority of the work
to slow the vehicle down
to a few hundred miles per hour.
♪
Man: Dragon spacecraft,
it's now subsonic.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Narrator: Now that the heat
shield has passed its test
and dragon has safely slowed
to below the speed of sound,
it's ready to deploy
its parachutes,
which is the final
step of reentry.
Parachutes are way harder
than they look.
If you go back and look
at the apollo program,
there are people quitting over
how hard the parachutes were.
We almost had people quit
at spacex
over how hard
the parachutes were.
Petrzelka: When the capsule
reaches the correct altitude,
we will deploy
the drone parachutes.
♪
♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
And then the main parachutes...
♪
♪
To bring us
to a jogging speed
before we splash down
in the water.
♪
♪
Woman: And there we have
confirmation of splash down.
♪
Matthews: We have a team of
people on fast boats that go out
and attach ropes
to the spacecraft.
They bring it over
to the recovery boat.
The recovery boat
has a crane which lifts
dragon out of the water
and onto the deck of the boat.
You know, the system
is more than just a spacecraft.
It's the it's the people
behind it
that are operating it
across teams.
Most importantly, we learn
how we can keep the crew safe,
keep them comfortable
all the way through
the journey there and back.
It's a good confidence builder,
not only for bob and I,
but for the team
that you can do it again
with the crew vehicle.
To see it pulled off,
you know, so successfully
kind of really brought home
kind of a ton
of excitement for the mission
that will be demo-2,
the first crewed mission.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Narrator: Spacex is focused
on the future,
reaching the next testing goal
for launching crew.
They don't have time
to look back.
Musk: The reason I started
spacex back in 2002
is really just to help us
get to mars.
You know, I thought there was
like maybe a 10 percent chance
of success that spacex
would work at all.
One path is we stay
on earth forever,
and then there will be
some eventual extinction event.
The alternative is to become
a space faring civilization
and a multi planet species,
which I hope you would agree
that is the right way to go.
Yes?
[ Cheers and applause ]
Well, I'll tell you,
there's a lot that makes
elon musk unique.
It's passion for what
he believes in.
He's committed to what
he's trying to achieve.
He's willing to put his money
where his mouth is,
and then achieve
really stunning things.
Elon musk was born
in south africa
and emigrated to canada
and then to the united states.
He was one of the co-founders
of paypal,
and that's how he made
his millions.
And after he made his money,
start thinking about
what he wanted to do next,
and what he could do to help
humanity and space travel
was one of the ideas he had.
There's so many things
that make people's sad
or depressed about the future,
but I think becoming
a space faring civilization
is one of those things
that makes you excited
about the future.
You know, his vision
at the time was just we need
to get the american public
inspired
to increase nasa's budget.
That was his goal.
And I'm like, "hey, you and I
have the same goal on that one."
this is under construction,
but this is where
our mission control
and launch control will be.
There's gwynne at her cube.
Shotwell: I joined spacex
in September of 2002,
and it was me
and 10 other people.
Narrator: Spacex president
and chief operating officer
gwynne shotwell
is a key member of the team.
Elon was very clear
with everybody.
We were to build the technology
that was necessary
to take people
to live on other planets.
This is the israeli test article
of our dragon spacecraft.
This area is used
for the engine components.
Davenport: There's a saying
the easiest way
to become a millionaire in space
is to start out
as a billionaire.
Shotwell:
He brought money, right?
He brought the first $70 to $100
million to this company.
And that was key because
that allowed us some runway
to demonstrate
that this little group of folks
could grow into a company
and build the capabilities
that no one thought we could.
It created ultimately
falcon 1 and did three failed
launches stuck with it,
went up to the edge.
Narrator: Elon knew that he had
to push the boundaries
and create a superior rocket in
order for spacex to thrive,
but the company
only had enough money
to build and test four rockets.
The first three falcon rocket
launches ended in disaster.
The future of spacex
looked bleak.
Hi, welcome to spacex.
You're here in the lobby.
I mean, the very early days,
I'd meetings with nasa
and they'd be like,
yeah, whatever, internet guy,
it's paypal, whatever,
you know, it's this just
some rich guy who's going to,
like, lose all his money
and rocket's not going to work,
which is totally fair.
I mean, we hadn't
proven anything.
I hadn't proven anything.
♪
Davenport: In the early days
when spacex was
first trying to get to orbit,
they had a rocket
called the falcon 1,
and they launched it
three times.
All three times
were unsuccessful.
And they had one more chance,
the fourth flight of falcon 1.
♪
If it didn't work,
then spacex would have
gone bankrupt
and we would not be around.
♪
Fortunately,
a flight four did work.
Narrator: The falcon 1 rocket
was a success.
In 2008, spacex landed
their first nasa contract.
Spacex was now officially
in the space game.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Nasa awarded contracts to spacex
and then orbital sciences
to fly cargo and supplies to
the international space station.
Nasa brought capital
to the company at a time
when it was
absolutely critical for us.
Behind me is where the falcon 9
would sit during launch,
and the big transformation
that's going occur
over the next few months.
It's the construction
of the launch mount.
With nasa, we initially got
until like the maverick section
or like the highly unlikely
to succeed
but we'll take...
We'll take a chance on them.
But we're definitely
not the considered the a-team.
Let me put it that way.
[ laughs ]
Narrator: Under contracts
with nasa,
spacex has flown multiple
cargo resupply missions
to the international
space station.
But flying cargo was never
the endgame for spacex.
Their goal has always been
to fly people.
It was the company's success
with these prior programs
that gave nasa the confidence
to hire spacex
to fly their astronauts
for the commercial crew program.
We've had a long
and very productive
working relationship
with nasa over time,
gradually building up
from these guys have no chance
to know over the course
of now 18 years to the point
where nasa has enough confidence
that they're going
to launch astronauts
on the spacex vehicle.
It's a great honor.
♪
♪
[ Monitor beeping ]
Uh-oh. It's teasing you.
That is a... that's the three
stooges poke right there.
It's like the... [ laughs ]
Doug hurley and bob behnken
are super experienced.
They have many years
behind them.
They're two people
who've been to space.
I did fly on the space
shuttle previously.
I flew a couple of missions.
I went to space station,
did a lot
of assembly space walks.
Man: And there's bob waiting.
I flew on sts-135,
the last shuttle flight,
and then before that, sts-127,
which was an assembly flight.
Behnken: We go pretty far back.
You know, we were hired
in the same astronaut class
back in 2000.
So going on two decades,
which is a I guess we're called
the maybe the senior astronauts.
At this point. Old guys.
Never flown in space together,
and that's what's
really exciting.
Davenport: Bob and doug actually
met their wives
in that same astronaut class.
So they're both married
to astronauts
and they both were even in
each other's weddings.
Man: That's megan mcarthur,
who is our flight engineer.
Woman: Astronaut karen nyberg
blasted off for her mission
aboard the international
space station.
Having spouses that are
astronauts that have been
through
what we're going through,
that kind of recognize that
there's long days
that are involved,
and they appreciate
that aspect of it.
They understand the ups
and the downs.
They understand the risks.
It just makes it a lot easier
in some respects
and maybe harder for them
in some respects,
because they do understand all
the risks and they've done it.
Woman: You left a three year
old son at home.
He missed his first day,
I think, at preschool.
Of course it's hard,
but we do have
great communication.
My husband sends up pictures
and videos.
We both have families
that are pretty similar.
We both have young boys
that are in elementary school.
They're both going to get
a chance to really kind of see
us flying space
for the first time.
I'm really excited to be able
to share this with my son.
He understands
that rockets are dangerous,
and he first said,
"you can't fly on that rocket."
and we had to get him over
as kind of, you know,
the emotion that goes along with
riding on a rocket ship
and get them comfortable
with that.
As we move towards flying
these two individuals,
as we often refer to them
as these two fathers. Right?
There these these
two people who have families,
it's something that
we take very, very seriously.
We want to make sure that
everything we do is right
and that we're going
to bring them home safely.
Any time you're developing
new spacecraft, new technology,
there's so much risk
that's inherent in that.
And when you put
human beings on board,
that makes the stakes
so much higher.
Everything, everything has to go
right for it to be a success.
And the nature of our business
as military test pilots,
school graduates kind of going
through what we've been through.
We recognize that there
are all aspects of risk
associated with our missions
or the tests that lead up to it.
It's a scary thing to be
launching people, you know?
And risk is never zero.
Narrator: Spacex's success
record is far from perfect.
Man: Three, two, one.
Lift off of the spacex
falcon 9 rocket.
Narrator: On June 28, 2015,
spacex launched
their seventh cargo
resupply mission for nasa
to the international
space station.
Man: We appear to have had
a launch vehicle failure.
Narrator:
Several minutes into launch.
The falcon 9 rocket failed
and completely disintegrated,
destroying the entire contents
of nasa's cargo.
It's definitely a setback,
but the fact the matter is
rockets are just
extremely difficult.
Narrator: It was later determined
that the failure was likely caused
by a single strut
inside the rocket
that broke free
and breached a helium tank.
Then on September 1, 2016,
another major failure.
♪
The spacex falcon 9 rocket
that was supposed to launch
a communications
satellite blew up
during a test fire.
You know, it's part of testing.
These things do happen,
and the thing
you want to obviously avoid
is when people
around that vehicle,
you don't want
those things to happen.
So that's why you test,
and spacex really wants
to test things
to their full capability
and sometimes things do blow up.
Neither of these missions
were intended to carry humans.
This is why the next failure
spacex encountered
would be their most difficult.
We experienced an anomaly
on the test stand
where our crew dragon vehicle
from non-crewed
test flight exploded.
Narrator: During a test,
fire of the engines,
the very same dragon capsule
that was used
in the demo-1 one mission
was completely destroyed.
Davenport: I mean, they lost
the entire dragon capsule,
which was a huge setback
for them.
And it raised
some real concerns.
When the dragon capsule
was lost,
we go through
that range of emotions.
First, you're gonna have to deal
with questions from your family.
And folks are like,
"hey, is that the vehicle
you're going to ride on?"
how do you manage, you know,
telling your son
that you're facing
that risk as you go forward.
You know, that's
a thing we have to do.
Davenport: This was a moment
where inside nasa,
I think people were wondering,
was this whole experiment
going to work?
♪
Petrzelka: We experienced
an anomaly on the test stand
where our crew dragon vehicle
from non-crewed
test flight exploded.
Davenport: There were people
on the beaches
of the florida space coast,
and all of a sudden
they saw this huge plume
of orange smoke go up.
♪
It's a it's an interesting
challenge to figure out how
for, you know, a kindergartner,
that's the age of my son,
how do you explain, you know,
the situation that
that kind of unfolded?
Luckily, he's not
on the internet
to be able to chase down
those videos
on his own at his age.
But we went through the process
of taking him to florida,
watching a rocket launch.
So after going to florida,
seeing a new ship
kind of launch into space,
he was he was ready
for me to go.
I think going along
with that, not only,
you know, kind of reinforcing
some things to your family,
but reinforcing things
with the team.
We kind of felt like
in some ways we had
to kind of get the team back up,
especially the team in florida,
because obviously
they took it very,
very hard and very seriously.
They recognize that
they're responsible
for our safety,
kind of going forward.
So it's pretty hard on that team
to look us in the eye
after having, you know,
a failure like that.
Right after the explosion,
nasa and spacex
led an investigation.
They quickly found
the root cause of the problem.
Narrator: The spacex
investigation revealed
that the cause of the explosion
was an unexpected reaction
between a fluid
under high pressure
and a titanium component
inside the vehicle.
The only we had... we had the
capsule strapped down to a stand
and we had a large series
of high speed cameras
and tons of sensors
which allowed us
to really get to the root cause
of a very nuanced risk
that we would not have
otherwise known about.
From an engineering perspective,
this was actually a success.
We identified a new failure
and we're actually
making our vehicle safer.
We're making
the whole industry safer
with this new understanding.
I'm very proud
of the spacex team.
And in fact, it just came from
a dragon engineering review.
We went through a detailed
list of all the risks.
And I think that
the dragon visionary team
has done a great job
in working closely with nasa,
and also we're just
going through
and double checking everything
to make sure
that things are as reliable
and as safe as possible.
How does a test pilot
kind of prepare
for a first flight
in a spaceship?
That's a great question,
because the last time
we did this
in an orbital vehicle,
it was john young
and bob crippen.
So it's been a while.
Behnken: We usually ask,
"what if it doesn't go"
exactly the way you planned,
then how should we be prepared?
And so we really try to dig into
every piece of the puzzle
to really understand
what's our plan
and then what's our backup plan.
And we're prepared
for all of those things.
Narrator: Nasa and spacex
must prepare
for all potential problems.
If there's a fire on the pad,
the astronauts must escape
quickly so they train
an emergency escape systems.
Spacex has on launch pad 39 a
an emergency egress apparatus.
If there is a fuel leak
or the astronauts need
to get off that launch tower
as quickly as possible.
So they've set up essentially
a giant zip line
narrator: From 265 feet
above the ground,
the slide wire basket whisks
the astronauts down the line
in under 30 seconds
to a distance of approximately
1,200 feet from the pad.
♪
♪
Davenport: There are armored
vehicles waiting for them
that they can get into and
then be escorted away to safety.
Narrator: The launch pad
isn't the only place
where astronauts face
potential danger
if there are rough seas
or storms,
the capsule splashed
down in the ocean
would present
a challenging rescue.
The water egress test
is where we practice
getting crew members
out of the capsule
when it's floating in the water
in an emergency situation.
Landing in the water,
anybody who's been on
a deep sea fishing trip
knows that you can get
pretty seasick pretty quickly,
having not even been to space.
So landing in the water
is somewhat of a challenge,
but the physiological aspect.
So we'll see how we react.
When the astronauts
come back from space,
they'll land in water.
We will pull them
onto our recovery ship
and the first thing we do
is I'll enter the capsule
and I will make sure
that they're healthy,
decide how they need
to be brought out of there.
We want to make sure
that we move them really slowly
to keep them from being sick.
And we'll do a lot of things
to keep them comfortable
when they return.
This is what we do
as astronauts.
This is what we do
as test pilots, you know,
and and the opportunity
to be able
to go fly this vehicle
for the first time with crew
is just something
you could never pass up.
When we go to test pilot school,
this is the kind of thing
that you wouldn't even imagine
you to get a chance to do.
It's almost a once
in a generational opportunity.
♪
♪
- Hey, bob,
- it's good to see you, doug.
Narrator: In 2014,
the commercial crew program
awarded spacex $2.6 billion
to create a new launch system.
Today, nasa administrator
jim bridenstine
is visiting the spacex factory
to see how the taxpayers money
is being used.
The spacex factory is like
a candy land for aerospace.
It's like this incredible place
because you can see rockets
being built, lots of rockets.
You can see lots of engines
being built, you can dragon
spacecraft being built.
You can really see the cutting
edge future of spaceflight
all the time all around you.
Narrator: This is the part
of the factory
that houses the revolutionary
falcon 9 rocket.
This rocket essentially
been designed
with the help of nasa
with the help of the air force.
It's really designed for
how do you make the most
reliable rocket ever made?
- Right.
- That is our goal..
Falcon 9 is essentially standing
on the shoulders of titans,
as they like to say
in literature.
We've built upon
a lot of those lessons,
the things that
nasa has learned,
we've taken that,
but use kind of a clean sheet
of paper that says,
"how can you build a rocket"
knowing that we want
to do things
"that have not been done before?"
in the history of spaceflight,
rockets were used once.
Man: Lift off of the atlas 5.
Davenport: The first stages
went up,
delivered
their payload to space.
Man: We have stage separation.
Then they splash down
in the ocean,
never to be used again.
That would be like flying
cross-country
from new york to l.A.
And throwing away the airplane.
That would make commercial
aviation enormously expensive.
And yet that's what
we've been doing in space.
We have lift off of falcon 9.
What spacex has done
is developed a rocket
that can be reused.
It's first stage booster
delivers
its payload to orbit...
Stage separation confirmed
then it flies back
and lands on land
or at a ship at sea.
We have an interesting
history at spacex
when we talk about failure.
♪
Narrator: Spacex knows that
failure is an unavoidable stop
on the path to success.
Now that they're on the verge
of flying astronauts
for the first time,
the stakes have
never been higher.
Also, the restaged felt bad
because it's designed
to be returned.
That stage is insanely robust.
Is really gone
through its paces.
The falcon 9 is a huge
step forward in spaceflight
and achieving the goals
of spacex
and ultimately making life
not that planetary
and lowering the cost of space.
The biggest achievement
is the ability
to return the falcon
home to land.
And it is hard.
It's definitely hard to do.
You need to be able to accept
failure during the design,
the innovation process
here at spacex.
And a lot of times
in the rocket business,
failing means
you're making craters.
There's a smoking hole
in the earth
somewhere where a great idea
came up a little bit short
and crashed into the euro.
During the test phase,
we would get close to the ship.
But we're maybe going sideways.
We ran out of propellant.
♪
But we do that
because you use a test,
a fly, a test, a fly,
and then figure out
how it works,
not necessarily by just
running analysis in computers,
but by actually
flying the rocket.
That's where you really learn
what the rocket can do.
For decades, honestly, people
thought that that was not
something that you could do.
They thought it would
just be too hard
to bring a launch vehicle
back to control
that vehicle coming
all the way back to earth
narrator: After years of designing
and testing the falcon 9,
in 2015, spacex set out
to make history
by attempting the first
ever landing
of a first stage orbital rocket.
Man: Stage separation confirmed.
Insprucker: To bring falcon 9
back to earth.
We've got a navigation system
in the first stage.
Most first stages
don't have that.
The rocket will then relight
three of the nine engines
to begin to slow down.
Each engine can be moved left
and right, up and down
so that we can steer
the rocket back towards
where the landing sites
are going to be.
Man: Stage one landing burn
has started.
Reed: I've heard it described
as you standing on the top
of the empire state building
and you drop a pencil off
and you have to land the pencil
on it's eraser
on a postage stamp.
Ultimately, it's not beyond
the realm of physics.
That it's not beyond
the realm of physics,
there's an engineering way
to get it done.
Man: The falcon has landed.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Wow. This thing
actually landed intact.
Amazing. That was crazy.
[ Cheers and applause ]
There's an old phrase,
if you're not failing,
you're not learning.
So if you're too cautious
and you never fail,
you're not actually figuring out
how to push the envelope
to do the kind of things
that no one has done before.
♪
Musk: You know, there were
a lot of people
that didn't think the rocket
landings were real big thing,
that we were just like
running the video in reverse.
Such I feel like it get confused
between improbable
and impossible.
There's lot of things
that are improbable,
but unless you breaking laws
of physics, it's not impossible.
Insprucker: Currently,
the falcon 9 is designed
to be flown 10 times.
Each time we do a refurbishment,
what we call
vehicle maintenance.
That doesn't mean that
it expires after 10 flights.
Instead, as we get close,
we will look to do
some more testing
because we expect the falcon 9
can fly way
more than 10 flights.
We just ease up on it a step at
a time as we expand the history.
♪
This is launch complex 3a
at cape canaveral
on kennedy space center.
This building houses
and processes falcon 9s
that have landed
at our landing pads
or have been landed on the drone
ships and have come into port.
To refurbish a rocket,
they roll into the hangar.
We load them into
their pressing rings
and it's a matter of weeks
to process them
and get ready for launch.
Reusability is incredibly
important to space exploration.
One, it helps of cost savings.
And two, it helps time.
If every time
you build a new vehicle,
we would be waiting and waiting
and waiting for new rocket
to be produced.
But we're able to fly rockets,
land them and reuse them.
That means we can access space
on a weekly basis
versus like a monthly
or yearly basis.
The end goal is obviously
to have zero refurbishment,
to be able to land
and then relaunch like airplanes
to ensure that we're able to
access space on a daily basis.
That's something that spacex
is very proud of
and what we're trying to do
as a stepping stone
to help us to get to mars.
Currently, the stages
investors crash in the ocean.
You can't recover the hardware,
so you can't see
where there was a close vote.
When we get the vehicle back,
we examine the vehicle
and physically see it.
Was there anything
that virtually had
a burn through or
we were close on margins.
Right.
And then we can adjust
that in the design.
Well, what we're seeing
when you use the same rocket
the second, third, fourth,
fifth time, insurance rates
actually go down, not up.
That's how you tell.
Insurance company
is pretty sharp.
- Right.
- They don't like losing money.
After you get through
that first flight,
just like a commercial airplane.
You like an airplane that,
you know has been flown
several times
rather than being the first
customer on board the airplane.
The commercial insurance rate
is the best indicator
- of the reliability of a rocket.
- Right.
And we have the best
insurance rates in the world.
- Oh, is that right?
- Yeah.
I didn't know that.
The holy grail is really a fully
reusable orbital system.
That's by far
the most important thing.
It's like the difference
between having aircraft
that are reusable
or not or cars.
The profundity of this is
not well understood
by very many people.
Narrator: Team spacex still has
one more critical test to pass
before they will
be allowed to fly.
Nasa astronauts.
What happens if a rocket
explodes in flight?
[bleep]
There is a plan
to save the crew.
Spacex now must prove
that it works.
♪
Narrator: The crew dragon
capsule is a spacecraft
that houses the crew.
It is replacing
the cargo dragon capsule
that was previously
used on spacex
resupply missions to
the international space station.
The dragon spacecraft
that will be using
to carry astronauts
to the space station,
bring them home is really
a 21st century spaceship.
My first impression
of the inside of crew dragon.
I was amazed.
It's obviously
a modern space vehicle.
It's very sleek design
inside, very comfortable.
The seats are actually
car racing seats,
so the safety factors
go up considerably.
Musk: We've flown crew dragon
already to the space station
and back.
We subsequently made
a lot of changes, improvements.
But we also just have to be
absolutely paranoid
about safety.
♪
Hurley: Well, the experience
of training
in an accurate capsule
with a spacesuit is invaluable.
Bob and doug were there
spacesuits in this simulation
because we want training
to be as flight like
as possible for them.
Spacex dragon,
we are ready to test drive.
♪
Hurley: When you have
all your equipment on,
it allows you to get more
comfortable in a situation.
So the more you can train
in those suits,
the better you'll be
on the real day.
It's exciting to see, you know,
modern components
in a spacecraft.
You get very used
to the shuttle.
The 2,000 switches,
circuit breakers.
The seats, it's not the most
comfortable vehicle to fly in.
Behnken: You know, for those of us
who've been living with switches
from the '60s
for all these years,
to see a modern interface
is something
that's pretty exciting.
Spacex dragon,
we got [indistinct]
Woman: Copy that.
Some of the great innovations
that we've made.
We have wonderful touch screens,
so you can see everything
that's going on in the vehicle.
You can get all the data
that you need about the vehicle.
You also control the vehicle
all from these touch frames.
The gloves are compatible
with the touch screen.
It's imperative because there
are operations you need to do
with the gloves on.
[indistinct] are updated.
Hurley: The dragon capsule
is almost completely automated,
so it should be able
to fly the entire flight
without us intervening at all
if everything goes normally.
And I think it's the way
of the future with vehicles.
I mean,
we see that now with cars.
We see it with airplanes.
And this is just
the next logical step.
Woman: You should monitoring
your dragon longitude
and knowledge about initiation
of claw separation prep.
When you think about automation,
it's a layer of complexity
and software
that needs to be verified.
So the task for crew
on a good day is hopefully
that they don't need to do much.
On a bad day, they need to
understand exactly when
and how they need to respond
to the vehicle,
the vehicle's behavior
and what it's doing in space.
Dragon, spacex, contact.
Spacex, dragon.
We got you loud and clear.
Every single phase
of the mission
will be simulated,
so we have launch sims,
we have approach to station
entry, descent and landing.
And every single phase
has failures
that are unique to that phase
and require different responses.
Dragon, we are going in step
into the scenario.
Ultimately, even though
it's able to autonomously fly,
we want to make sure
that the crew understands
what's happening
and that they can take control
at any point in time to ensure
their own safety as well.
We can manually intervene
if we think things are not going
the way they should be
with the automation.
Dragon, spacex.
Where's our flight computer?
Yeah, it looks like we lost it.
Narrator: Today, the astronauts
are training for a scenario
in which the flight
computers fail.
Since the dragon crew capsule
is totally automated,
it relies on the computers
for almost everything.
With the computers down,
this could be a dangerous
situation for the astronauts.
We've seen one of our flight
computer processes
are not controlling the vehicle.
So what we'll do in training is
we break dragon.
Dragon, basics. Please proceed
to reboot flight computer.
So if the flight
computer goes down,
we teach them how to reboot it.
Okay, we've initiated
the flight computer reboot.
And we see
the same on the ground.
We're following. Thanks.
During simulations, you'll see
a lot of anomalies,
malfunctions.
Sarah and some of our
other simulation supervisors,
they relish those opportunities.
Gillis: [indistinct] has been
interrupted.
We are investigating
root cause on the ground.
Thanks. Copy.
It's really good not
only for bob and I as the crew,
but it's also for the team
on the ground.
It really throws the team
different curveballs.
Flight computer
has transitioned to...
Spacex, all our displays
are back up.
Well, that's great news.
- Flash count.
- Victory.
♪♪
Narrator: Nasa has required that
spacex's design of the crew dragon
capsule has
a significantly higher level
of safety than its predecessor,
the space shuttle.
Every aspect of dragon
has been tested
at the sub-system level,
as an entire vehicle.
There's so many test,
it will blow your mind.
Narrator: Even with all the
safety features
that spacex has built
into their systems,
nasa is also requiring
the inclusion
of a revolutionary
new safety feature
called the launch escape system.
Menon: If there was
a emergency on the pad,
the capsule is able to separate
from the falcon rocket.
And that's done
to protect the crew.
I want to escape system
is essentially an ejection seat
for the entire spacecraft.
If the computer sense
a problem with the rocket,
the spacecraft will
automatically separate itself
and fly through the air
with its super draco engines
so they can safely splash
down in the ocean
with its parachutes and save
the crew from flight anomaly.
The dragon spacecraft has
two types of engines on board.
The first started
16 draco thrusters.
Those are small engines that
make about 100 pounds of thrust.
And those engines are what
we're gonna use to maneuver
and dock to
the international space station.
And then there are
the eight superdraco engines
for a launch escape scenario
in an emergency situation,
which make thousands
of pounds of thrust.
♪
Crew dragon is utilizing 3d
printing to manufacture
some of the components on it.
A 3d printer works by laying
down layers of metal powder,
and as it lays down each layer,
it will melt together
a specific part
and then it builds up
layer by layer
to create whatever shapes
that you want.
And so this is really useful
when we look at things
like printing an engine
that needs many fluid passages
and it needs to be a very
interesting organic shape.
And because we've melted
together layer by layer,
you can make hollow parts,
you can make very interesting
shapes that would be difficult
to make by any other method.
♪
Narrator: In 2015,
space six performed
a preliminary pad abort test
of their launch escape system.
Our pad abort test
was performed to ensure
that our spacecraft design
could escape the launchpad
safely to the water
in the event of an emergency.
Woman: Three, two, one, launch.
♪
During an escape,
they will likely pull
between four and six gs.
That depends on the different
variables and the situation.
I think a roller coaster
is under three gs.
Man: We're over one kilometer.
Trunk deployed.
[ Indistinct talking ]
Passing through
six hundred meters.
Narrator: The pad abort test
was a precursor
to a much larger challenge
called the in-flight abort test.
In-flight abort
is a similar test,
but it tests a different
set of conditions.
Instead of demonstrating
separation from a rocket
on the launch pad,
the in-flight abort test
will demonstrate separation
from a rocket that is actively
flying through the atmosphere.
If there's a problem
with the rocket,
the in-flight abort test
will show
how the capsule can eject itself
from the rocket
and safely bring the crew
down to the water.
Narrator: The stakes for the
in-flight abort test are massive.
It is the last
critical milestone
that spacex must pass
in order to be allowed
to fly nasa astronauts.
Woman: Liftoff.
Man: Four, three, two, one,
and lift off.
Lift off of the 25th space
shuttle mission,
and it has cleared the tower.
One of my strongest memories
as a child was in fifth grade.
We watched the space shuttle
challenger blow up.
A loss of the entire crew
was a result of the fact
that there was
no launch abort system.
It shuts down the program
for a period of years.
Well, we want to do now
is we want to get to a day
where when there is
a catastrophic failure,
we have a launch abort system
that keeps our crew safe.
♪
Good afternoon, and thank you
for joining us.
We're here today to talk more
about the spacex
in-flight abort test
it's a demonstration mission
for spacex to show
that we're able to eject
our capsule off of falcon 9
safely and reliably.
This test
is very important to us.
It's really the culmination
of years,
close partnership with nasa.
Band it's one of the key steps
before we go
to our demonstration to mission,
which will carry bob and doug
up to the space station.
Narrator: Spacex must pass
this critical
in-flight abort test before nasa
will allow them
to fly their astronauts.
Soon, human lives
will be at stake.
So every precaution
must be taken.
The plan will be that dragon
is on top of the rocket.
The rocket will take off.
At about 84 seconds into launch,
we'll trigger
the launch escape system
and dragon will carry
the capsule
safely away from the falcon.
Dragon will hit about
mach 2.3 as it's getting away.
It will then hit an apache
of about 40 kilometers high.
It will jettison the trunk.
It will reorient itself
with the draco engines
and then it will continue
its trajectory
down in about
five minutes after launch.
The parachutes will deploy, and
about 10 minutes after launch,
we expect splash down.
The dragon recovery forces
will also be out there.
One of things I want to mention,
and this is kind of exciting.
The falcon has flown
three times before
and it's going to reflight
for this test
for the commercial crew program.
The booster behind us
or the falcon 9 behind us
we'll be flying
our in-flight abort.
So this will be
its fourth flight.
To my knowledge,
the in-flight abort test
is the first ever full scale
launch escape system,
safety test.
In the past,
other crewed programs,
they've done subscale testing.
This the first time, I think,
someone has ever taken a rocket
and intentionally thrown it away
with the sole focus on ensuring
that the system they're
designing to ensure the crew
is safe will actually function
as expected.
Narrator: A big part of the cost
of the in-flight abort test
will be a multi-million
dollar rocket
that will be deliberately
and completely
destroyed in the test.
Hi, chris davenport
from the "washington post."
question about the fate
of your booster.
You said it could tumble,
it might come apart.
You mentioned to fire.
I mean, is there a possibility
that it could actually explode
if people are watching
from the beach?
Should they be
prepared for that?
Sure. Absolutely, chris.
Yes, both stages
are loaded with fuel.
We expect there to be
some sort of ignition
and probably a fireball
of some kind.
You know, whether I would
call it an explosion
that you would see
from the ground, I don't know.
We'll have to see
what actually happens.
But I wouldn't...
I wouldn't be surprised
and that wouldn't be a bad
outcome if that's what we saw.
While you hope
the abort engines never light,
you don't want that ever
to happen because that means
something very, very bad
has happened here
I'm in an emergency
situation, but it can happen.
I mean, just recently,
nasa astronaut nick hague
was on a russian soyuz
where there was a problem
with the rocket,
the soyuz spacecraft.
Emergency abort systems lit
and it ferried them to safety.
Now, it was a wild ride
and they pulled something
like seven gs or seven times
the force of gravity
on their body.
It was not a comfortable
experience,
but they were alive
and they landed safely.
And that abort system
saved their lives.
The in-flight aboard tests
for doug and bob,
that's immensely important
because it just reassures them
that the spacecraft that
are going to get on is safe.
Narrator: Key nasa
and spacex officials
have gathered
in firing room four,
also known as launch control
at the kennedy space center.
They will oversee today's
critical in-flight abort test.
If this test fails,
the crew dragon program
will suffer
a major design setback.
♪
Musk: We're doing everything
we can to make this mission
as reliable as possible.
No stone is left unturned.
We're turning every stone
over three times or four times
just to get
that probability of success
as close to 100 percent
as possible.
This test is
about the entire team,
the nasa team and
the spacex team coming together
and pulling off
a pretty complex exercise.
We're going to launch a capsule,
we're going to put it
in the ocean,
department of defense
is going to have coordination
required between
nasa and spacex,
and that entire team
is going to show
that they can bring
a capsule home safely,
bring the crew, if they were
onboard, home safely.
And so that's really
what we're expecting
to see out of this test.
Woman: Weather is looking okay,
and the range is green
for launch.
Man: Dragon is in countdown
[indistinct] is armed.
Go for launch.
Woman: Ten, nine, eight...
If the test isn't successful
for some reason,
of course, you know,
you have a whole group of folks
both on the spacex and nasa side
that will have to take
a look at things and figure out
why it wasn't successful.
And this is obviously something
close to the last step.
This is all part of building
up to flying crew on dragon.
Seven, six, five...
Bridenstine: When you watch
a launch abort test,
you're wondering
has everything been done
to get this vehicle
ready for an end-to-end test
in one of the most stressful
and dynamic scenarios
you can imagine
for space flight.
Woman: Five, four,
three, two, one.
♪
[bleep]
Narrator:
This is the final step.
Everything is on the line with
today's in-flight abort test.
If this test fails,
nasa will not risk the lives
of their astronauts
and the entire project
will come to a halt.
♪
Woman: Ten, nine, eight,
seven, six,
five, four, three,
two, one, zero.
Ignition, lift off.
[indistinct]
♪
Narrator: This potentially
life saving capsule ejection
has been years in the making,
and it will be over
in just minutes.
Rockets are... it's basically
a controlled explosion
that's pushing a mass into orbit
at faster and faster speeds.
And it's the most dangerous part
of getting anything to orbit.
And so to simulate
a failure of the thing
that is most likely
to fail, the rocket,
and demonstrate that the capsule
with the precious cargo
that's sitting in that capsule
can survive that.
That is so key.
Narrator: Spacex has launched
a falcon 9 rocket
and crew dragon capsule.
The abort is
automatically activated
when the system detects that
the rocket is malfunctioning,
such as in the case
of an engine failure explosion
or the rocket
veering off course.
The abort can also be manually
triggered by ground control.
That will happen in this test.
Man: Vehicle is supersonic
and passing
to maximum dynamic pressure.
Narrator:
Once the computer senses
that the rocket
has malfunctioned,
it blows the bolts, holding
the capsule to the rocket.
Man: Dragon launch escape
initiated.
Narrator: Then the crew
dragon's superdraco engines
fire for 10 seconds to propel
the capsule away to safety.
- Dragon's away.
- Whoa.
Musk: Because the super draco
escape thrusters
are integrated into the vehicle,
you have a launch escape
capability all the way to orbit,
which has never been the case
for any spacecraft before.
♪♪
[bleep]
[ Indistinct conversations ]
[bleep]
♪
Narrator: Approximately
10 seconds after the abort
was triggered by ground control,
the crew dragon capsule
jettisoned away.
The force of the ejection
made the rocket unstable
and it exploded.
But the dragon capsule
was already safely
a mile away from the rocket.
With the dragon
jettisoned safely away,
the trunk, which carries
unpressurized cargo,
is ejected and will crash
into the ocean.
Now the capsule will begin to
reorient itself for splash down.
However,
the mission is not over.
With the capsule hitting
a top speed of mach 2,
this last phase is key
for the astronauts safety.
Our parachutes are triggered
and deployed
when the capsule
reaches the correct altitude.
So at a high altitude, it will
deploy the drone parachutes.
And when it reaches
a lower altitude,
the main parachutes will deploy.
[ Applause ]
♪
Woman: Fully open and we are
coming up on about a minute
until splash down.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
♪
♪
- Splash down.
- Yeah!
[ Cheers and applause ]
To watch it go from start
to end successfully,
it just... it's really
something to behold.
And I know a lot of emotions
on both teams today,
and we're very excited about it.
It's just one step on this
longer road to creating a mass
transit system
for people to other planets.
Is everything good?
Everything's good.
[ laughter ]
Behnken: So as a crew member,
it's going to ride onboard
this vehicle.
Having a system onboard dragon
that can get you out
is pretty cool.
I think people sort of forget
that technology
does not automatically improve.
It only improves if a lot
of people work very hard
on that technology.
We have to drive innovation hard
to make life multi planetary.
I think this is very important
to secure the future of life
as we know it and to ensure
that the light of consciousness
does not go out.
Bridenstine: We are a nation
of explorers.
We're also a nation
of that leads.
And this, of course, represents
us returning american astronauts
to space on american rockets
from american soil.
So this is a great opportunity
for us to once again lead.
And this time when we lead,
we're doing it differently
than we've ever done it before.
Bridenstine:
We need to make sure
that we are constantly
pushing the envelope,
constantly moving forward
with technology and making sure
that we are commercializing
it in the process.
Today, we had a launch
abort test
of a commercial crew provider.
Commercialization of space
is the next giant leap.
And when we take this leap,
we absolutely need to make sure
that our crew is safe.
Narrator: The success of today's
in-flight abort test sets
the stage to send astronauts
to space from u.S. Soil
once again in a mission
called demo-2.
And for the first time, they'll
fly aboard a private spacecraft.
Bridenstine: So in this very
challenging time
when we launch to
the international space station,
something we haven't done
from american soil since 2011,
I do think that it gives people
an opportunity to dream big
and to look up and to know
that we can do stunning things.
And it gives people hope,
not just in
the united states of america,
but throughout the entire world.
I don't generally get nervous,
but when I start thinking
about this mission,
I actually get
quite nervous about it.
The launch of demo-2
will be the day.
This will be the moment
for this company.
This is the culmination
of everything we have done
since the company
was founded in 2002.
Musk: This is a crucial step.
Getting people back to orbit
again, you know, knock on wood.
I think probably success
is high,
but it is not 100 percent.
We're just doing everything
we can to think
of any possible way to improve
probability of success,
because this would be
a big setback
if if something
were to go wrong.
Narrator: Bob and doug are
poised to leave quarantine
and ride in teslas
to iconic pad 39a
at kennedy space center
in cape canaveral, florida.
Behnken: We're excited,
of course, for the mission.
And one of our goals
is to share with everybody.
Hurley: I hope that people
appreciate the amount of effort done
by so many people at nasa
and so many people at spacex
to get us to this point.
When bob and doug
walked down the crew access arm
to the dragon capsule,
they'll also be walking
into the history books
as the two astronauts
that returned america
to space from u.S. Soil.
This will be a stunning
achievement
for nasa and spacex...
Officially launching
the second golden age
of space travel.
This is but the first step
on a long journey
that will take us back
to the moon
and to mars and beyond.
♪