This painting was a quick demo for my virtual Elite Illustration students. Today, July 7, 2020 at 12:30pm NASA will be broadcasting a live event with the ISS Expedition 63 In-Flight crew, Commander Chris Cassidy, and fight engineers Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. They will be interviewed by the New York Times and Fox News.
The SpaceX launch was on May 30, 2020 from Cape Canaveral. This was the first launch of humans in to space from American soil for more than a decade. It took the spacecraft 19 hours to reach the International Space Station (ISS), 400 kilometers above Earth. Here the crew will remain for one to four months, before they return home.
To help prevent the contraction and spread of any illness, astronauts are held in isolation for 7 days before they launch into space. This is to keep them healthy and to avoid sending pathogens into space. The astronauts were also they were trained on how to detect symptoms and early signs of diseases. Only one launch was ever scrubbed due to an illness.
Elon Musk was overcome with emotion after the launch. His company Tesla was charged with building the rocket that launched the astronauts into space. His adrenaline was pumping. He then got choked up talking about his responsibility to bring the astronauts home safely to there families. Both astronauts have young children. He said, “I’ve spent 18 years working toward this goal, so it’s hard to believe that it’s happened.” Musk said. “This is hopefully the first step on a journey towards civilization on Mars, of life becoming multi planetary, a base on the moon and expanding beyond Earth.”
NASA initiated temperature checks and physical distancing at mission control leading up to the planned launch of the space X rocket, which is the first manned space flight in nine years from American soil. A successful launch requires the contributions from dozens of technicians at mission control. Workers were separated into different rooms as much as possible and plexiglass was installed between work stations.