Page 29 - Weightlessness News Today

>> going through it, we needed some hope to cling on to. seeing hayley shoot into space like that, my god, if thats not a symbol of hope. >> reporter: in mankinds history, only about 600 people have gone to space, but never an all-civilian crew. >> i think those guys last night kicked the door open to orbital commercial space flights. >> reporter: there may be a commercial space race with virgin galactic and blue origin, who both recently went suborbital, but the great achievement here celebrate...

Talking about his experience and what he believes theyll now come back to earth with after going through this incredible journey and how it will change them. listen. >> it is a very unifying experience. you see the true inter dependent, interconnected nature of our world. when you see that from space, it changes you. the light bulb comes on and it fills you with a expense that we need to take care of this place, take care of each other. >> reporter: one of the big questions we all have, what is ...

For about six months. being a private astronaut doesnt mean that you need to be a super person. this is showing that normal people can go into space despise the strange experience of going into zero gravity. i guess the message is, we are back in the days of the 1920s of flying when it became more common, but at the time any people thought it was a rather alien thing to do, that it strained the body, but we are showing now that spaceflight has become almost part of our daily activity. private pe...

Freshly baked. smells so good, i can almost taste it. but you dont eat bread. ♪♪ and right now as we speak, the first all civilian crew is in orbit after the successful spacex launch overnight, marking another milestone in the space race firing up all summer. what are the four civilian astronauts experiencing hundreds of miles above the world? kerry sanders filed this report from cape canaveral, florida. >> reporter: andrea, right now, the inspiration 4 crew is orbiting planet earth. theyl...

Become the youngest person to go to orbit is a cancer survivor with a metal rod in her leg. the whole mission is being paid for by a billionaire who is serving as the commander and take a look at a little bit of the training that they went through for this mission, brianna. >> oh my goodness. wow. im feeling like an astronaut, thats for sure. >> reporter: where are we? and what are we going to do today? >> here we are newark airport and were going up in zero gravity on g-force 1 and get the same...

Our report from the launch site in west texas tonight from nbc news correspondent tom costello. >> reporter: in remote van horn, texas, the anticipation is building. the launch pad, 45 miles out in the desert, set for jeff bezos liftoff. this morning, bezos and his three fellow passengers were giddy with excitement. >> people say they go into space, they come back changed. i cant wait to see what it will do to me. >> while blue origin has flown 15 unmanned test flights, this will be the first to...

>> yay! >> one-minute warning. one-minute warning. >> the one-minute warning is telling them they have one more minute left of weightlessness, then they have to get back into their seats, buckle in because theyre going to start to fall back to earth, and theyre going to pickup speed very, very quickly, 5 1/2 gs on the way down at one point. theres three parachutes that will be deployed, ultimately slowing down the capsule. >> look at that. its dark up here. >> its dark up here. >> everybody in?

>> the booster is about to separate from the capsule at any moment. its supposed to separate at about 228,000 feet. and then at 3 minutes, 3 minutes from launch, which is very shortly, weightlessness, theyll begin to experience zero gravity and they can float around. >> woo! oh, wow. >> look out the window. >> oh, wow. >> woo! >> watching this as well is colonel chris hatfield. colonel, as you watch this, what

Of weightlessness. i want to bring in tom costello live in texas, and with us mae jemison. whats it like? >> reporter: spectacular day of accomplishment. we can appreciate the engineering expertise, finesse, execution that went into this. this is all about brain power and yes, money. money power, brain power. they pulled this off perfectly as did richard bransons team nine days ago. they believe fully this is something that is going to only continue to grow. i love the wilbur wright analogy. but...

Is it one of those things where you just took it in and its hard to compare to video? what are the sensations that come from having seen that right now? >> it felt way cooler than it looked. >> true. >> well, so after, of course, their four minutes of weightlessness, the fun you had, we got you buckled back in and you descended under the beautiful three parachutes. i think we have another video of your dissent back to our beautiful west texas valley. lets roll that right now. >> that moment felt...