Former astronaut and SpaceX consultant on creating a new crewed spacecraft: ‘We were the underdogs’

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The Verge by  Loren Grush 5/11/2020

Former astronaut and SpaceX consultant on creating a new crewed spacecraft: ‘We were really the underdogs’

SpaceX’s upcoming crewed launch will be “really intense” for Garrett Reisman

For former NASA astronaut Garret Reisman, SpaceX’s May 27 launch of the company’s first human passengers to space is going to be a very personal moment. Reisman worked at SpaceX for years, helping the company win NASA contracts and overseeing operations of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft — both the new crewed version, and its predecessor, which brought cargo to the International Space Station.

Reisman left SpaceX in 2018 to become a professor at the University of Southern California, but he’s maintained contact with the company as a consultant. Soon, he’ll be watching when his friends, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, fly on the vehicle he helped develop at SpaceX. “When there’s somebody on there that I know — emotionally, psychologically it changes everything,” Reisman tells The Verge.

At the start of his journey with SpaceX, “We had a lot of competition from around the industry, and we had a little tiny team, and we were really the underdogs,“ Reisman says. Now, the company is set to be the first commercial venture to launch people to the International Space Station. He spoke to us about how he’s feeling ahead of the launch, and what it was like to work on the Commercial Crew Program.

More: https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/11/21254316/nasa-spacex-astronaut-garrett-reisman-crew-dragon-historic-launch