- Hi it's me, Tim Dodd,
the Everyday Astronaut. I think it's safe to do this now because we are socially distant, we are far away from everyone, we are following safety protocols, but I am here at launch complex 39A. This is at Kennedy
Space Center in Florida, I am standing right in front
of SpaceX's crew Dragon capsule riding on top of SpaceX's
gorgeous Falcon 9 rocket. You know this rocket, it can land itself. It's flown like 85 times or something, it's just this reliable workhorse rocket that SpaceX has been flying
for almost 10 years now. And I'm here because this day is a really really exciting day. NASA is sending crew on top of a rocket for the first time in almost nine years. Almost nine years exactly. The last crew that took off from this exact launch pad, actually from launch complex 39A was STS-135. That was July 8th, 2011. And that was the last
time the United States has put people into orbit. So this is a really big deal. Tomorrow from right here about 24 hours from right now that rocket's going to take off and it's going to be sending
Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley up into orbit and
they're gonna be sent off to the International Space Station. Now if you need a timeline
breakdown of all of the events on launch day all the way
from suit-up to orbit, I've already got you covered with a video. Now if only there was
someone that I could ask a couple more questions to because there's a lot of exciting stuff that I think a lot of want answers to. Who could that be? I gotta stop doing that joke. You guys have read the title of the video, it's not like you don't know what I'm doing right now. (laughing) Oh, I wonder what
Tim's gonna have on camera. Hey guys. - [Both] Hey. - [Tim] How's it going? - Good, how are you? - [Tim] Fantastic. Okay I've got smorgasbord of
stuff for you guys to set up. Jim if you could stand
right over there along that, I would love to shake your hand, but- - I know, it's sad isn't it? - Yeah, I'll just throw
you a quick peace sign. Right there is a mic, if you wouldn't mind micing yourself up, that would be fantastic. And Elon, if you wouldn't mind
mixing yourself up there too. - Sure.
- That'd be great. (Elon whistling) - And then rolling on that, rolling here. Hi guys, congratulations, we are basically 24 hours away from seeing humans return
to space from US soil. American rockets,
American soil. (laughing) - You've heard that before? - [Tim] Yeah, we've heard it - That's good.
- and I think we're ready, so. - Cool. I think the biggest thing I wanna, well first off congratulations to a big 2020 for you so far, you've had a kid.
- Oh yeah. (laughing) You have a rocket out there on the pad waiting to have astronauts go
to space for the first time. And you're working on
Starship simultaneously. You're still doing everything with Tesla, you're a very busy person. But I wanted to set a record straight straight off the bat. I want people to hear from both of you the beautiful partnership
of NASA and SpaceX and how far back it goes and that it's not NASA versus SpaceX. - Oh that's right. - Absolutely. - Yeah, Elon if you don't mind just tell us the history
of how SpaceX and NASA started working together
in the first place. - Sure, well, I mean this actually could
be quite a long story, but basically the whole
reason I started SpaceX was actually to try to
increase NASA's budget. Or at least the way I
got interested in space was I tried to figure out
why we had not gone to Mars and then I thought well
maybe we need to reignite public excitement in Mars, so I initially started off with the idea of doing
this philanthropic mission to send a small greenhouse to Mars to get the public excited
about sending life to Mars. And if I got the public excited then they would tell their
representatives in Congress to increase NASA's budget. (laughing) That was the goal. It was meant to be a philanthropic thing. And then I tried to buy
some ICBMs in Russia to do this and ultimately
came to the conclusion that there's actually plenty of will to go beyond Earth but
there needs to be a way. Like, essentially NASA needs
to have more affordable rockets that we need to increase the
pace of innovation in space and so if we can give NASA
another horse in the stable, that is moving faster and cost less and is more innovative, then that would be a way to
accelerate progress in space. So I love NASA and always have. And always will. - Yeah yeah, and Jim you weren't with NASA at the beginning of the COTS
program and stuff like that, or even the, yeah, the
commercial resupply, but you've been around for a while to see the cherry get on the
top here with the crew program actually coming together, so tell us about what you've seen so far and how you've seen
the commercial partners really step up to the plate. - Yeah, so SpaceX brings a very
unique capability to the mix that NASA has been lacking quite frankly. SpaceX is really good
at flying and testing, even being willing to fail and then fix and then fly, test, fail, fix and they can reiterate
that over and over again very very fast. And we've seen that with Starship now. The willingness to fail is
something that NASA has lacked for a very long time. But it's what enables
SpaceX to move so fast. To rapidly iterate and improve. NASA has this history of
qualifying every component and then every sub component and then every, you know, every piece of every
rocket is fully qualified and everything has to go
perfect on every launch. And that slows us down. And SpaceX has been a great partner; make no mistake, they have pushed NASA, but I hope NASA has also come
along and pushed them in a way that is unique as well, so this partnership has been fantastic. And you're seeing the fruits of it; you'll see it tomorrow, for sure. - Yeah, there's no question that SpaceX would not be where
it is today without NASA. As the saying goes, we're only here because we stand upon
the shoulders of giants. - Yeah and then you're
wearing stilts on top of that, I feel like.
(Elon and Jim chuckle) It's a high bar. I mean we're inside the
actual firing room here, this is where the, and you guys flipped it the right way so everyone's looking out the windows. (Jim and Tim laughing) - That's like the biggest change. We modernized some of the decor, but most importantly
we flipped the screens so everyone can look at it that way. But this glass that's
been here since the 60s, you can see it in the Apollo
documentaries and stuff. It's the same glass, same angle, it's been here since the 60s actually. It was modern looking. - Yeah, no, it's gorgeous. This glass has seen a lot of history. - Yeah, I mean, what an awesome view. It's incredible, like wow. - So I mean that's just
gotta be the biggest honor for, SpaceX leased that pad in 2014. I was actually, that was the
first mission was CRS3 for me, and Gwen was out here to release the pad. And I remember it being a big deal you know 39A, that's the launch pad.
- It's like Time Square. - Yes! - It's like opening a play on Time Square, this is the best location. The best launch pad in
the world, definitely. - By far and I mean obviously for those listening this where the people going to the moon every single one of them walked up, went up that tower, well a
slightly different tower, but out there on that pad, went to the moon, like 80-something space shuttle missions took off from 39A, I mean- - It's a great honor that SpaceX
is allowed to use that pad. - There's a lot of history there. And we're still writing the history. The history is gonna be
written tomorrow yet again. - Yeah, so, tell me a little bit- - I'm trying to... - Yeah, you're in the super
most awkward position, this is gonna be the most
YouTube interview ever, but you know, we're rolling with it. But one of the fun things for me is watching the cargo
go into the crew vessel. All of the sudden we had Dragon one, now we have crew Dragon and it's substantially
different but familiar. So tell us, what's been
some of the hardest parts to transition from cargo into crew. 'Cause crew is a little more important than cargo. - Yes, I mean cargo can
be replaced, crew cannot. And so the level of scrutiny,
the level of attention is I mean I don't know, an
order of magnitude greater, it was already high for cargo. But it's just a whole
nother level for crew. So, and I told the SpaceX team that, you know the this mission reliability is
not merely the top priority it is the only priority right now. So we're just doing
continuous insuring reviews from now, nonstop, 24
hours a day until launch. Just going over everything
again and again and again. And I was out at the pad just recently just walking down the rocket; we've got a team that's just
crawling over the rocket in the horizontal. Then we're gonna rotate it vertical, then we're gonna crawl
all over in the vertical. And we're just looking for any possible action that could improve the
probability of success no matter how small. Whether that comes from an
intern or anyone, doesn't matter. - And this is just the beginning of, I mean we're seeing a lot
of new things come out between partnerships with SpaceX and NASA. I think the one- - There's been a great partnership. Like I said, I love NASA. I literally had IloveNASA as my password. Technically it was IloveNASA9!. (all laughing) 'Cause it would be too
easy to guess otherwise. Was the nine because
of nine merlin engines? - I think yeah yeah, it was. - Nice, nice. So I want to know, you guys have dropped some surprises on us just in the past couple months we have Dragon XL flying on
Falcon heavy for Gateway, I didn't see that coming at all. What is DragonXL? What's its heritage? What is it? - Well, I think probably I
wanna limit this interview to what's happening tomorrow and then we can talk
about other stuff later. I always love talking to you so it's like, (stammering) but we gotta stay. - We gotta stay on, okay. - Like when I said this
is the only priority, this is the only priority. So other stuff is nice,
this is the priority. - What I will tell you and
I think this is important, this relationship between SpaceX and NASA, has been sufficiently meaningful to where we are now looking at how we do all of our business models. And that includes how we're
gonna resupply the Gateway. It includes how we're gonna get to the surface of the moon. This business model has
proven to be very effective. First on commercial resupply now on commercial crew. I will let SpaceX and Elon
Musk talk all day long about what the details entail, but, and obviously he's not ready
to talk about that today, but I will tell you that the relationship has proven to be tremendously valuable and that the business model has proven to be tremendously valuable. - Yeah, well I mean because
NASA basically got a Falcon 9 and a Dragon capsule for an initial investment of $400 million. - Right.
- Yeah. Nobody thought that would work, basically. I think, yeah. That was not expected. That was like, I think at the time viewed
as like a maverick thing that you know to basically, to some degree, at least by a lot of the
conventional people was like, oh let's just you know give
those commercial guys some money to be quiet and then, you know, they'll stop bugging us, basically. - It was definitely a hail Mary. - And then it worked. - Yeah, it was a hail Mary. A commercial partner launching
an orbital class rocket, I mean, rendezvous with the
International Space station, it was already this huge long checklist of okay sure, yeah I have to do that, okay I'll have to do that too. And now we're just seeing
the next iteration of that, we're seeing it to the point of being, you know replacing the
shuttle's importance of carrying humans on top of it. I mean that's like the
ultimate thing, you know? - Yeah.
- Yeah. - Well, the flag has been up there since 2011. And if all goes well,
Dragon will recover the flag that was last placed there by the space shuttle nine years ago. - And Doug was on that mission. Doug Hurley. So he, did he actually
put the flag up there? It'd be pretty cool if- - I'm not sure, but- - It would be pretty cool. - I mean there's a certain
poetry to this whole thing. - There really is. And the same launch pad. I mean the whole thing is
coming full circle, so. What do you guys think as
far as looking forward? I mean we have next up already, you already have another
crew launch on the docket. I mean, and it's been expanded
from three people to four. This mission's expanded
from a two-week mission to a month plus? - Yeah, I'm not sure
- Yeah. - If the final amount of
time has been decided, do you know? - No, it's very flexible on
the backend, I'll say that. So we wanna make sure that
crew one is ready to go. We have a target date for
that at the end of August. And between now and then if crew one is ready to go, Bob and Doug, we're gonna bring 'em home. If we need to extend 'em a little bit, we'll extend 'em a little bit. We wanna get as much out of
the International Space Station as we can. And so that's what we intend to do. But the big three factors when we think about the flexibility on the backend of this mission, the big three factors
are the solar arrays, which for this mission have
about 114-day lifespan. Although we will learn on orbit- - Yeah, we'll, exactly, there's a lot to be learned. - They could last longer,
we don't know yet. But we're assuming 114 days at this point. And then of course the weather
and the readiness of crew one and I think if all goes well. I've been really clear with
everybody on the NASA side, our number one priority is
to get this thing tested and to get Bob and Doug home safely. - Absolutely. - That's the highest priority. I would also like to say, you mentioned that this is the
replacement for the shuttle. I really think that that's
a gross understatement. We are transforming in
a very historical nature how we access space in general. We're NASA as a customer, one customer of many and we expect SpaceX as you know to go get lots of
customers that are not us. And that's gonna drive down our costs. And we wanna have not just SpaceX, but other providers that are competitive on cost, on innovation, on safety, basically creating this
robust marketplace in space. And then we're using, the
ISS right now is being used to create the commercial
markets of the future for microgravity. Whether it's pharmaceuticals,
immunizations, printing of human organs in 3D, advanced materials, artificial retinas, I mean there's so many
things that we're proving out on the ISS right now. And if NASA accomplishes its objectives, we're not just gonna
have commercial resupply and commercial crew, we're gonna have
commercial space stations, we're gonna be landing
on the moon commercially, so this is the shuttle replacement, that's not what this is, this is a transformation of how we do commercial space in general. - I'm not sure if the
public is actually aware that there's a giant space
station zooming around earth. I think probably a lot
of people don't know that this is the case. And it's enormous. - Yeah.
(Elon laughing) - There's an enormous space station zooming around the earth 25
times the speed of sound, circling the globe every 90 minutes. When you see the pictures it
looks like it's stationary, and it does have station in the name, but it's extremely fast, it's going I mean, it's going you know like... - 17,500 mile and hour, 27,000 kilometers, it's screaming. - Yeah.
- It's screaming. - I mean, order of magnitude faster
than a bullet, basically. - Right right, yeah. And that, it's so funny 'cause there's been a permanent presence on the International Space Station too for what 20 years or something now? I mean it's been a huge
part of the science an the exploration of NASA currently and it's fun to be able to
see now with new offerings we'll be able to get to the
International Space Station cheaper and NASA will continue to push and go back into deep space which I think it a really cool way to transition into the future, so. - Yeah, as the administrator was saying, you know this is, I mean, this is really, we want this to be the dawn of a new era. Where there's a rapid
increase in innovation, we're sending more and
more people to orbit that we're sending both government and commercial
passengers to orbit, astronauts to orbit. And generally opening up space for humanity. The ultimate goal being that anyone who wants to
go to orbit or the moon or maybe even Mars can go. It's like if you want to move there you can. Like that's the ultimate goal. - So but then how is that handoff look? 'Cause if commercialization opens up and NASA's the current gatekeeper
so to speak a little bit, how does, that transition's gonna be a little bit of a gray
area for a little bit. You know if Tom Cruise going to the International Space Station, who has the authority to say what goes on and all that stuff currently when commercial partners are
the ones selling the ride? - Well NASA, obviously. (laughing) - Well, remember, for now, right? And look, NASA, we have a job. Exploration, discovery,
science, inspiration, that's our job. But there's a whole
nother element of space which is development. And that's what commercial industry does. Commercial industry does development. So when we think about you know when people came to the new world and then they expanded west, right? They expanded west with a purpose, they were seeking commerce. The railroad got put
into place for a purpose. It was put there for commercial reasons. And that's where we are right now at the dawn of this new
era in space flight. Ultimately if the
government is the only one doing things in space it
will not be sustainable, it will not be successful. There has to be a commercial motive to achieve the objectives
that we all hope for. - Yeah and we're literally seeing that. This is it, this is the
dawn of that new era. - It is. - And that's, I mean, what
history in the making. I'm so excited that everyone, the public is finally seeing this. I'm seeing this everywhere, you know, I mean SpaceX has had some
big missions recently, NASA's had some big missions recently. But this is the one and I am so excited to be here. It's unfortunate a lot
of the press and public aren't able to have the you know, concerning the circumstances, but it's so cool that we live in an era where we can bring this to everyone and everyone can get excited and have something forward to look, something to look forward to instead of the current
state of the world, so- - I really hope this is something that like everyone, no matter what their
political leanings are, how they feel can be excited, they can look at this and
be excited about the future. - Yeah. - That's exactly right. Like this is a bright shining moment in a very difficult time. And we've had these in the past and this is what NASA
has been historically, a signal of hope in a time
of troubled circumstances. And of course we think back to the 1960s, we think about Vietnam, we
think about the protests, we think about the civil rights abuses, we think about the civil rights protests, the country in turmoil, and yet, in 1968, we sent
astronauts around the moon in 1969 we landed on the moon. That was probably one of
the most difficult times in American history and yet we still achieved
these magnificent things. And here we are in the midst
of the coronavirus pandemic and we can still do magnificent things and that's what tomorrow represents. - Yeah, that's awesome. Well thank you guys for
taking some time with me. Best of luck tomorrow.
- Yeah thank you. - We're all gonna be tuning in, I'm telling you the public
is extremely excited, so. - Great. Thank you guys for everything, I'm gonna have to just
throw you guys a peace sign and say thank you, but yeah all right, thanks guys. - Thank you, appreciate you. - Let me apologize. If you saw this in my ear, it's not because I have a producer, I just had my friend Trevor
Malman helping me shoot this and that's it, that was it. There's CBS and CNN with all their big fancy cameras and stuff and then there's just me and I only brought two microphones because I didn't know Jim
Bridenstine was gonna join us which was a huge surprise so it ended up being, like I'm like I'll give
them the good mics, so if my audio sucks, I apologize, you're
hearing iPhone headphones to the rescue. So I guess that's the
joy of being a YouTuber. Well, that exceeded quite literally every expectation I've ever had in life. I was just right there in
firing room number four which is literally where they
commanded the Apollo missions and told the rocket that took humans to go to the moon to launch. Right there, I was there,
what just happened? You should watch the Apollo 11 film, the CNN films documentary on Apollo 11 that just came out last year for the 50th anniversary. You get to see a lot of shots
from that particular room. It was stuffed to the brim with computers and it was facing the wrong way where people were not
looking out the window. And it's just, being in there right now I'm just totally beside myself. Wow, what an awesome day. And tomorrow's going to be even cooler. And honestly I couldn't do it if it wasn't for the help
of my Patreon supporters. So I you wanna help me
continue to do what I do and make awesome content about rockets and space flights, head on over to
patreon.com/everydayastronaut where you'll gain access to
our exclusive sub Reddit, our exclusive Discord channel, and exclusive live streams. And if you wanna wear
some really cool shirts, including a shirt where Elon's after we shut off the camera's he's like, you have arcadia planitia on your shirt? I'm like yeah, that's your
prime candidate landing site for Starship with the exact coordinates and he just chuckled and
was like, that's awesome. So yeah, if you want your own
future martian society shirt and some reminders of the
gravity and atmosphere on Mars and also a reminder not to forget to wear a space suit if you're on Mars, if you want any other cool shirt like the full flow staged
combustion cycle shirt or pointy end up flame-y end down we got lots of cool
nerdy space stuff for you at everydayastronaut.com/shop. Thanks everybody, that's
gonna do it for me. I'm Tim Dodd, the everyday astronaut. Bringing space down to
earth for everyday people. (funky music)
Sorry I couldn't get any details on Dragon XL / Starship etc etc... I really wanted to weave the narrative in the future and wound up kinda getting an overview, but still fun! Next time we'll talk hardware ;)
Jim summarized it nicely by saying that this is not a replacement for space shuttle. It is a fundamental transformation of the space industry and access to space as we know it. Great interview. Love it.
Loved hearing Bridenstine recognize SpaceX's design style of test, fail, fly. I wonder how many skunkworks projects are happening behind the scenes between the two firms.*
Edit: Just to add more context. I really, really wonder how the relationship with SpaceX will evolve if this flight (and Crew-1) goes perfectly. Will NASA funnel more outlandish work through SpaceX since they don't have incredibly tight development regulations? Jim almost seemed relieved to have them as an option since they develop solutions fast and loose.
"I tried to buy some ICBMs from Russia" 😂😂😂
Thanks again, Tim. This is a pretty long interview you were able to do for 2 in-demand people. Great job and congrats.
Bridenstine is awesome. I used to think only engineers should lead engineering organisations/companies
I honestly wouldn’t trust anyone else to deliver a quality interview with these guys.
You are the top Space dude in my book, Tim. Thanks for getting us the juicy info all the time.
Thanks Tim for everything you do.
Great job. Jim explained really well why is this start so important and it's not just a smaller Shuttle replacement.
Keep on pushing, thanks from Poland!