‘Space dad’ jokes: NASA astronauts created prank calls right after historic SpaceX splashdown
NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley returned from orbit with their senses of humor intact.
The duo splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico around Pensacola, Florida, Sunday (Aug. 2), wrapping up SpaceX’s historic Demo-2 mission to the Global Place Station. Behnken and Hurley experienced a little bit of time to kill as they waited for recovery crews to fish out and inspect their Crew Dragon capsule, so they determined to make a few phone calls.
“Five hrs in the past, we have been in a spaceship, bobbing around, making prank satellite telephone phone calls to whoever we could get a hold of. Which was form of entertaining, by the way,” Hurley reported during a welcome-house ceremony in Houston, where by NASA’s astronaut corps is based mostly.
Complete protection: SpaceX’s historic Demo-2 Crew Dragon astronaut exam flight
He was becoming significant about making all those jokey calls we have outside the house affirmation.
“I gained a person of these calls at the flight director console. It begun with an opening line like ‘Hi, it can be Doug and Bob, and we are in the ocean.’ I think my reaction was, ‘Yeah, I can see that,'” NASA flight director Anthony Vareha mentioned by way of Twitter.
Behnken’s wife, fellow NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, received a call from the freshly returned Crew Dragon as perfectly.
“On my cellular phone it said ‘Spam Possibility.’ Glad I answered anyway!” McArthur tweeted yesterday.
I recieved one particular of these calls at the flight director console. It started out with an opening line like “Hi it really is Doug and Bob and we’re in the ocean.” I think my response was “Yeah, I can see that.” https://t.co/Posn3RdQM9August 3, 2020
Particularly! On my cell phone it mentioned “Spam Chance”. Happy I answered anyway! https://t.co/1WmMpQAL3PAugust 3, 2020
Demo-2 by itself was no joke, of course, and Behnken and Hurley took care of business enterprise all through their nine weeks in house. The successful completion of that landmark check flight keeps SpaceX on program to fly its initially operational crewed mission to the space station in late September, furnished analyses of Demo-2 data expose no pink flags.
That coming mission, known as Crew-1, will be the initial of at minimum six that SpaceX will fly to and from the orbiting lab below a $2.6 billion NASA deal. Crew-1 will aspect four astronauts: NASA’s Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi.
The 2nd contracted flight, Crew-2, is qualified to start in spring 2021. It will use the identical capsule that flew on Demo-2, which Hurley and Behnken dubbed Endeavour. And you will find one more link to the check flight as well: McArthur is 1 of the four Crew-2 astronauts. (The other 3 are NASA’s Shane Kimbrough, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and the European Place Agency’s Thomas Pesquet.)
Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018 illustrated by Karl Tate), a e book about the search for alien daily life. Stick to him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Fb.
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