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Chief engineer of SpaceX Elon Musk praised the SpaceX team for safely returning stranded astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to Earth on Tuesday night.
RSBN shared live footage of the remarkable event as the SpaceX Dragon craft splashed down, bringing the entire crew back to home without any issues.
Americans celebrated the event, and even a pod of dolphins came to greet the SpaceX Dragon as it bobbed around in the Gulf of America.
Former astronaut Charles Camarda noted during a Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham, “Elon Musk saved the U.S. space program.”
Musk himself offered details regarding the SpaceX rescue and also described future aspirations for space travel in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News. He expressed his concern for the mission and everyone involved and then stated, “Thanks to the excellent work of the SpaceX team working with NASA, the astronauts are now safely home.”
He also offered “A huge note of appreciation to President Trump” for his role in approving this mission and making it a priority.”
Musk confirmed that he offered to perform the rescue for the Biden administration last year but the request was rejected “for political reasons.” He detailed how “The astronauts were only supposed to be there for… for eight days, and they’ve been there for almost ten months. So obviously that doesn’t make any sense.”
He mainly focused on the mission, explaining the risks and challenges of space travel, “There’s always some chance that the first or second stage will blow up.” He defined the returning craft as “a blazing meteor,” and noted the risk of disintegration should the heat shield fail.
Musk reviewed how SpaceX has grown after first failing with their rocket launch attempts, nearly running out of funding, and having to learn over time. Now, with continued successes, he went on to reveal that within 20 to 30 years the company should be able to get humans to Mars and “Ultimately build a self-sustaining civilization on Mars.”
He then announced that this year, “We are launching the starship rocket.” He was eager to detail why this is a “revolutionary” step in space exploration.
“It’s the first rocket that has the potential to make life multiplanetary. To make us a multi-planet civilization for the first time in the history of Earth, and that’s uh, truly profound,” he said.
“We’re really testing the very edge of human ability here,” he went on. “The very edge of material science.”
Musk called it “A moment of optimism about the future. A moment of excitement about the future,” with hopes that it will create, “Great things for America and humanity in space.”
