Thread by @thesheetztweetz

Thread: NASA and SpaceX are hosting a Demo-2 press conference, with Administrator Jim Bridenstine, President Gwynne Shotwell, Commercial Crew program manager Steve Stich, ISS program manager Joel Montalbano and the astronauts of Crew-1.

Tune in here:

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini Bridenstine: "Today we really made history. We are entering a new era of human spaceflight."

"We also need to remember that this is just the beginning."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini Bridenstine: "Congratulations to SpaceX and Elon Musk, congratulations to Gwynne Shotwell, and certainly congratulations to the entire NASA team, which has worked so diligently on this for so many years."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini Shotwell: "Today's a great day; we should celebrate what we all accomplished here today, bringing Bob and Doug back. But we should also think about this as a springboard to doing even harder things with the Artemis program and then, of course, moving on to Mars."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini NASA's Stich: "I'm almost speechless as to how well things went today."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini Stich: "We did have one slight issue as we were bringing the vehicle back onto the onto the ship, we noticed a few slight toxic vapors ... [but] they were within limits where we could have actually safely had gotten the crew out."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini Stich: "When I left the console [in mission control] the helicopter had landed on the ship and was ready to take Bob and Doug back to shore and Bob and Doug were out of the capsule, getting some medical checkouts and things were going very well."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins: "As you can imagine, Crew-1 has big smiles on our faces from what we saw from the launch and into the mission ... it did not seem like this was the first NASA-SpaceX mission with astronauts on board."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini .@lorengrush: Why were private boats allowed close to the landing?

Bridenstine: "After they landed the boats just came in, and we need to do a better job next time."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini @lorengrush Stich adds: "We do clear that area, we have like a 10 nautical mile area that we clear. We have a couple of Coast Guard cutters out there that were clearing the area and they did an excellent job. It was totally clear for the actual splashdown event."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini @lorengrush .@KeithCowing follows up, asking if they won't splashdown so close to shore.

Bridenstine: "We have a number of different options but you're absolutely right, we can do better ... that capsule was in the water for a good period of time and the boats just made a bee line for it."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini @KeithCowing Shotwell adds: It's not really the job of the recovery crews to "police the area, we had the Coast Guard out there for that. The lesson learned here is we probably need more Coast Guard assets."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini .@Free_Space asks, how does SpaceX feel about flying private passengers soon?

Shotwell: "We certainly feel comfortable that we're on the right path to carry commercial passengers not too long from now."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini NASA now taking a question from Twitter.

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini .@joroulette asks, how many missions until SpaceX flies private crews?

Shotwell: "Obviously we're trying to really change the paradigm of human spaceflight and in order to do that you need to make sure that these capsules are rapidly and readily reusable."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini @joroulette Shotwell: The Crew Dragon capsules are designed for 5 to 10 mission each, so "we have to see how things worked out after we examine the capsule ... But based on the telemetry, and any visual indications that we've had so far the vehicle that's like it's in really good shape."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini Bridenstine: "We're looking forward to doing Crew-2 with the capsule that just came home ... but there's a lot of work to be done between now and then."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini .@SciGuySpace asks what transition has happened at SpaceX since the failed Falcon 1 flight 12 years ago:

Shotwell: "I never shy away from our failures, they're incredible opportunities to learn and this company has learned a lot."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini NASA going back to social media for a question.

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini .@StephenClark1 asks how many Crew Dragon capsules SpaceX plans to build:

Shotwell: "We are building out a fleet of Dragon 2s, both cargo version and crew version. We want to wait and see how many we have to build."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini @StephenClark1 .@DaveMosher is there anything SpaceX would change for Crew-1 from Demo-2?

Shotwell: "I think probably the greatest surprise is that this mission was as smooth as it was. I don't want to take anything away from the team, but this was a demonstration mission."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini @StephenClark1 @DaveMosher Shotwell: "We had a lot of press on the solar arrays and we're looking to have upgrades there to make sure that the vehicle survives with margin on orbit for the 6 months requirement ... By the way, the solar arrays on this particular mission did better than what we anticipated."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini How did Endeavour's splashdown compare to those of the Apollo era?

Stich: "I would say the landing compared to the Apollo spacecraft was very similar .. The one difference is SpaceX has chosen to use four main parachutes versus Apollo had three."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini .@jeff_foust asks, what's the process remaining for certifying Crew Dragon?

1) Overview all telemetry/data
2) Examine parachutes
3) SpaceX takes the vehicle apart and inspect the whole spacecraft

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini I asked if astronauts will typically be helped out after splashdown:

Stich: "It's pretty typical for long duration spaceflight that when a crew returns to Earth they need a little bit of assistance coming out of the capsule ... it takes the body a little while to adapt."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini .@SpcPlcyOnline asks, what does having 4 people per crew mean for ISS operations?

Montalbano: "Today we average about 35 hours a week [of science research] and we're going to increase that to 70 hours a week, once we get four crew members up."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini .@EmreKelly asks about Behnken trusting Crew Dragon to carry both him and later his wife, Megan McArthur:

Shotwell: "We will make sure that that vehicle is as good or better than the vehicle that Bob flew in."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini @EmreKelly Shotwell adds: "What we did for Bob, I think we can do an even better job for Megan and I hope she is really excited to fly in this particular capsule."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini .@smasunaga asks for more information about the fumes detected outside Endeavour:

Stich: "It's a pretty common practice with any spacecraft -- we did it with Space Shuttle -- that after landing we would go around and sniff to see if there were any vapors."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini @smasunaga Stich: "We think there may be some mechanism where it's getting in trapped into the service section ... I think we'll go figure out a way to handle it better on the next flight, perhaps, starting with a purge as soon as we get on the vehicle."

@Commercial_Crew @AstroBehnken @Astro_Doug @SpaceX @elonmusk @JimBridenstine @VicGlover @Astro_illini @smasunaga Bridenstine: While having toxic fumes around the spacecraft may be pretty common, but "what is not common is having passers-by approach the vehicle at close range with nitrogen tetroxide in the atmosphere. That's not something that is good."