Welcome home Butch and Suni.
 

It has been a long time coming.

Hooray to SpaceX and Elon Musk for their rescue. A perfect flight up to the ISS, booster landed back on the X spot. And a perfect flight back to earth splashing down in Gulf of America. Did you see the dolphins circling the capsule bobbing in the water? Yet another Musk company - built from scratch - is changing our world.

So happy for the two astronauts who are Finally back on earth. It will no doubt be a very long and demanding recuperation and adjustment to life on land again. But they are home.

There are many people involved with this kind of operation. Hats off to them. I doubt if Musk had much of anything to do with this work of art.

Musk did run the business which has been extremely successful. He does hire capable people.

Space X has had a huge number of failures the last I looked. But that is the norm when the testing the limitations of scientific knowledge of space travel. I am not a fan of Elon Musk.

I am a fan of NASA.

???? Elon Musk was integral in starting and funding SpaceX from scratch. He was intimately involved in the engineering and technical development. The first 3 Falcon rockets failed and blew up. SpaceX was almost bankrupt, as was Tesla. Musk rolled it all, giving $1M each to SpaceX and Tesla- almost his entire bankroll. The 4th rocket succeeded and Tesla took off as well.
BTW, the booster landings back on earth, integral to Elon’s strategy for space travel —- he has now successfully landed 400 boosters to reuse. Amazing physics.
Please. Without Musk this would never have happened.
Reference Walter Isaacson’s biography last year of Musk. So intriguing.

False. SpaceX has had a remarkable track record of success, though it’s not without some failures—failure is part of pushing boundaries in aerospace. Since its founding in 2002, SpaceX has launched over 400 Falcon 9 rockets, with the vast majority succeeding. As of March 19, 2025, the Falcon 9 has achieved a success rate of around 97%, with only a handful of notable failures, like the 2015 CRS-7 mission explosion or the 2016 AMOS-6 pre-launch incident. These setbacks were heavily publicized, but they’re dwarfed by the sheer volume of successful launches, landings, and missions—like Starlink deployments or crewed Dragon flights to the ISS. Compared to the early days of space exploration, where failure rates were much higher, SpaceX’s record is impressive. Context matters: “huge number” suggests a pattern of consistent flops, which doesn’t align with the data. They’ve had hiccups, sure, but they’ve mastered turning lessons into wins.

I'm convinced that those who "aren't fans of Elon Musk" are just irredeemably jealous of his intellect, success, and wealth. Be careful...the Green-Eyed Monster will consume you.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

We all know they'll need extensive physical rehab now, but I also wonder how their mental health is after that ordeal. Will they want to go back into space?!!

It could have been done last year.

Elon was Chief Engineer throughout the Design and Manufacture of the Falcon 9 rocket and oversaw the Design and Manufacture of the Capsule that transports astronauts to and from the ISS. Elon is very "hands-on", so please don't try to diminish his role in anything that he's involved in.

Suni is my college classmate. She was asked that question in a Teams meeting we had with her a few weeks ago. Her response was that she wants to go to the Moon and Mars.

Please stay on topic and completely away from anything that even hints at politics so the thread can remain open.

A tone of “kindness” is appreciated for all discussions.

Doesn’t Space X make the decision who gets a ride to and from? I am sure they could have been brought back sooner, but my guess is Musk made the decision, to wait.

Returning could have been impacted by $$$$$$$. I am sure it’s wasn’t a free ride.

Since the team wasn’t originally from Space X, wouldn’t they have wait for a favor, or go to the end of the line, until it’s big publicity and profitable for Space X?

286 days. The US Astronaut record is 371. The world record is 414.

They flew long-duration missions before, so were well-acquainted with life in microgravity.

They were never stranded, or stuck. Those are sensational journalistic editorial comments by reporters who know better.

The International Space Station accommodates visiting crew vehicles docked with seats for every crew member to quickly depart in the event of a serious issue requiring rapid return.

SpaceX and Boeing were contracted by NASA to develop crew transport to the ISS when it was decided to retire the Space Shuttle.

SpaceX already was under contract to provide cargo delivery.

Boeing's Starliner will fly to the Station again. The next flight may be uncrewed with cargo, but it will fly crew again to rotate with Crew Dragon every six months as originally laid out by NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

People have lived on the Station permanently conducting these same rotations since Nov 2, 2000, when Expedition 1 arrived on a Soyuz spacecraft with a US Astronaut and two Russian Cosmonauts. That means a 25 year old has never known life on Earth without someone living in space.