Thread by @thesheetztweetz

SpaceX and #Inspiration4 are hosting a post-splashdown briefing by phone, with:

– Inspiration4 mission director Todd “Leif” Ericson

– SpaceX human spaceflight programs senior director Benji Reed

Thread:

Late addition: @F16Kidd4 is joining the call from SpaceX's recovery ship, with an update on the crew.

"They're taking selfies, they're having a good time, they're eating, they're drinking, standing up and walking around. Just an amazing ride for everyone."

@F16Kidd4 Poteet: "The group is in great spirits, they're having a blast and everyone's looking forward to reuniting with their families in about 30 minutes." #Inspiration4

@F16Kidd4 Ericson: "I can't tell you how impressed I am with the whole SpaceX team and just how smoothly this mission went. Welcome to the second space age!"

@F16Kidd4 Reed: "We had a couple of issues that we worked" during the spaceflight, with a "minor" problem with the waste management system [space toilet] and "a temperature sensor on one of the Draco engines that we took offline; they were giving bad data but it was actually redundant."

@F16Kidd4 Reed: The amount of time the forward hatch to the cupola was open was largely "up to the crew."

"We were monitoring things like the impact of the temperature, because you lose a certain amount of heat ... when you open that window just like you would down here on Earth."

@F16Kidd4 Reed: "The amount of people who are approaching us" since #Inspiration4 launched about purchasing a private SpaceX flight "through our sales and marketing portals has actually increased significantly, so that's exciting."

Ericson emphasizes the additional millions of dollars donated to @StJude during the crew's return, with total donations "now at $160 million and climbing."

@StJude Reed: "If you watch the webcast ... and you look at the smiles and the fist bumps and the clapping inside the capsule ... that tells u all about the personal experience" of the crew during the spaceflight.

Ericson says the issue with the Dragon space toilet "was an issue with a fan that's part of the system" but a workaround was implemented without any real issue.

Ericson: "We still had probably 50% of propulsion left on Dragon and we had consumables that would have allowed the crew to extend for another two days without any really significant issues, so definitely lots of margin on that."

Ericson: "Dragon is flown much more like a modern airliner, where the pilots, Jared and Sian, are both directly interacting with the system, acknowledging what's going on, ensuring the automation is working properly – which is really the future, it's what made aviation safe."

Reed: "We can't talk about the price of the mission, that's obviously private."

Reed: SpaceX is "always looking for the right balance, you want to have the right lean amount of workers doing things" in support of a mission.

Reed: "This astronaut group was super trained ... these guys were trained as well as any other astronaut group that's been in Dragon – they knew what to do and they could handle it if they needed to."

Reed: "If you look at the track record of SpaceX, what we've done in terms of driving down the launch costs overall, significantly driving down costs."

Reed: "You're right, you've got to keep driving that cost [of access to space] down and that's how we're going to go to Mars and how we're going to really open it up to everybody."

Ericson: "It takes visionaries like Jared who are willing to spend their hard earned capital – not only to do it, but also do it for the right cause, with St. Jude – and then things become more routine and regular."

Ericson: "I think today's a great day for America, I think it's a great day for commercial space travel, and I really believe this mission will be looked at as the first mission opening the second space age ... where space travel becomes much more accessible."

That concludes the call.