MEET THE ASTRONAUTS
SpaceX introduces company’s first human flight crew
As four NASA astronauts took the stage at SpaceX headquarters on Monday, employees who gathered on the factory floor to greet them amid engine assemblies and giant rocket parts welcomed the crew with a roar.
Wearing classic NASA-designed blue jumpsuits, the four astronauts — Pomona native Victor Glover, along with Bob Behnken, Mike Hopkins, and Doug Hurley — represented not only the first human passengers for the Hawthorne-based private rocket builder, they also represented the promise of a nation seven years after NASA’s final space shuttle mission.
The event was part of a press availability with the astronauts, part of a group of nine who were recently selected by NASA to become the first to take part in the space agency’s next generation of manned space flights, a vision to partner with private companies such as SpaceX that began a decade ago.
Founded in 2002 by highprofile entrepreneur Elon Musk, the fundamental mission at SpaceX is to expand human space travel, especially to Mars.
While SpaceX has ferried 15 cargo loads to the International
Space Station on a Cargo Dragon capsule, human space flight is the company’s
core goal, Director of Crew Mission Management Benji Reed said.
“Human space flight was the reason SpaceX was founded in the first place,” Reed said. “It’s our No. 1 goal and our highest priority.”
Along with the first SpaceX manned mission planned for April, another set of astronauts will deploy around the same time on a Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
For the past seven years, NASA has relied on the Russian space program to shuttle American astronauts to the space station on board a Soyuz rocket from a launch pad in Kazikstan. Returning manned space flight to American soil, Behnken said, was a point of pride.
“For those of us who launched on space shuttles,
it was something special for us to go through,” said Behnken, who’s flown two missions to space. “It was special for our families to see that and school kids who we try to bring our missions back to and inspire or share our missions with. It’s a little different when you can do it in your own backyard.”
Glover is the only astronaut who has not been to space yet. All four are test pilots for the armed services.
“The opportunity to go to the space station and be a part of the crew is an overwhelming opportunity,”
Glover said. “To not just fly the crew vehicle but to then work and live on the space station, I’m overjoyed. … It’s truly a test pilot’s dream.”
A Navy commander and aviator, Glover was first selected to join the NASA pool of astronauts in 2013. He has logged just under 3,000 hours flying 40 different aircraft. Glover, who attended Ontario High and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, made 400 successful carrier landings and flew 24 combat missions.
On Monday, SpaceX officials led journalists through the factory floor where mechanics tightened bolts on the latest Merlin engines while others worked on giant pieces of the nose cone, known as fairings, which are
like the fuselage of an aircraft that descend in halves back to Earth.
Astronauts submitted to a halfhour question-and-answer session with journalists preceded by an introduction to the Dragon spacecraft that will ferry them into orbit.
The demonstration included a full mock-up of the spacecraft to crawl inside and put yourself in the shoes of an astronaut with 1.7 million pounds of thrust, greater than five 747s at full power, under the seats.
Journalists also got a look at a simulator astronauts use for training about every other week along with a newly designed spacesuit, which looks like something from “Star Trek.”