Page 30 - Into Space News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Model. i've got to say one word here about the intersection of hollywood and reality here. for years and years and years, people would come and visit nasa and say, so where is the zero gravity room and why don't you go at warp speed? in other words, the reality never was as good as what we saw on the silver screen. here we're having the confluence point where hollywood meets reality and the reality is still a long way behind warp speed. we saw a week or so ago when the inspiration 4 crew went to space, one of the crew members was sick for most of the occasion, the toilet didn't work so well. i...

Designed to cushion the fall. as we have heard from william shatner say, as excited as he is to go up into space, he'll be just as excited if not more so to come back and have that smooth landing. guys? >> may, we are now inside the ten-minute mark. what are the final check points? >> so mission control will be running through everything they need to know to make sure the rocket is safe and the mission is safe. whether it be looking at weather, whether it's making sure that the engines and all of those pieces, there's going to be a series of factors that will be considered and weighed and made...

Look out the window to space, i saw something i didn't recognize, and i said to the commander, what is that? and he said, that's the sunrise. as the sun came up, i thought how breathtakingly beautiful. like someone took the most brilliant blue paint and painted it on a mirror right in front of your eyes. and i knew right then, i would never see anything as beautiful as our planet earth again. you have those kind of memories. certainly, the rocket launching, the first time on the space shuttle, when you feel that 7 million pounds of thrust instantaneously, that gets your attention like nothing ...

This capsule has been designed is clearly so that people can see as much as possible. >> reporter: -- in the short time, if you think back to 1961, when alan shepard first went, windows were a big controversial item, because they were expensive to put in and they didn't think they were needed. so the fact that these guys are going to spend about 11 minutes in space and they get to look out these gorgeous windows, i would love to be up there to see it again, but i think all it's going to do is whet their appetite and they're going to be longing for more. >> leroy, i want to bring you back in. i...

Management, for remote sensing, nasa, is a, the european space agency, the japanese space agency, all of these have actually worked to make sure that those benefits come back to earth. so i think we want to make sure that as we look at commercial and tourism, that we don't forget that space exploration has a really big benefit and that vision and that inspiration has been with us for thousands of years and it's not just about going up in space. it's about using space. >> coming up on 1:20 to liftoff. let's listen in on mission control. >> they are sitting at the top of the of-foot rocket want ...