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All around all around there in west, texas, uh former nasa astronaut mike massimino, is with me as well. Mike is also a senior advisor for space programs at the intrepid sea, air and space museum here in new york and and mike uh, you watched it all unfold as well with me here. What do you make of it? Well, first off thanks, thanks for having me really uh, really thrilled to be here with you and amazing what we uh what we just saw. I i think that this is a great accomplishment, uh we’re we’re, for the team at blue origin able to to pull this off. They had 15 successful flights before this three successful flights of tests of their of their escape system, and now they got people on board and jeff. Bezos takes the first ride, so i think it’s pretty exciting. I think it opens up opportunities not only for people. I’M. Also, a professor at columbia, some of my students have had an experiment fly already on the new shepard spacecraft, so i think it’s going to open up opportunities and more access to space and and very exciting uh. What blue origin has planned for the future as well? Mr costello, we know that there is going to be a news conference of some sort here, uh roughly an hour and a half from now, so reporters will get to ask some questions of the of the civilian astronauts. What do we know about what happens after this? They will have well, first of all, they’re gon na have some family time reunited with friends and family right here on the ground.

Uh do that privately, and then they have a series. After the news conference, they have a series of one on one uh interviews with the media um. You know i’ll just a couple of points here. First of all, this isn’t really as much about a billionaire going to space in the in in the terms of jeff bezos, any more than it was really about richard branson it’s about this new chapter uh in allowing anybody eventually to experience seeing the earth from beyond That you know that carmen line between the atmosphere and space and providing people really what they hope is kind of a a rounding experience, a human experience and gain a greater appreciation uh for where we are for this planet that we are on and it’s it’s. Only us right, we’re out here in the middle of nowhere in the universe. I would also make the point: it is a very comfortable 75 degrees on the ground here in west texas, and it normally can get up to 110.. The locals here are talking about the fact they cannot believe we’re having such wonderful weather here yesterday was only in the 80s, so a fantastic weather and a beautiful day to land here in west texas. Also, by the way we had a security and a safety briefing here on the ground before this whole thing started and the director of security for blue origin, a very uh very serious guy, said, look out for the rattlesnakes, the scorpions, the tarantulas and the tornadoes.

So beyond that have a great time so um you know, you can imagine that they, i think all the rattlesnakes were scared away when that thing landed in the sand a few moments ago, it also appeared as if someone uh someone remembered to bring the champagne to The party there uh in the desert in west texas may jemison is is back with me as well. Um may i here we are in 2021 we’ve just seen: uh four civilians uh head into space, the second time in nine days, we’ve seen something like this. Where are we going to be ten years from now may jefferson, if you had to guess wow that’s a that’s, a big guess for me craig. I think that, where we’re going to be is where i hope will be, is that the excitement about space exploration continues and we will step fastly continue to support the incredible uh work that governments do in space exploration, because this is very clearly and and rightfully built On work, that was from 1961 on in terms of getting humans in space and so we’re able to have a confidence and origin in what they do, because we a lot of the big heavy lifting was already done. The commercial industry brings a wealth of engineering and innovation to move things forward, so i hope what we’re doing is we’ll see this continued process where it’s, not we haven’t sort of said it’s, only commercial it’s, only private industry, but we continue to support um the work That uh nasa does whether it’s long range space exploration or going back to the moon and also putting in the work with uh commercial industry.

So in ten years perhaps we’ll see the ticket prices come down, we’ll see more people involved, we’ll see more payloads involved and we will be back on the moon one way or the other, and that feels like the perfect period uh to our coverage. This morning a blue origin soared into space. It was there for roughly ten and a half minutes from touchdown to take off those four civilians. Jeff bezos mark bezos wally, funk oliver damon all safely back on this planet. Right now we will be hearing from them in just a bit, but for now that concludes our coverage of the blue origin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ3JyN8UqAQ