hi it's me tim dodd the everyday
astronaut i'm here in spacex
headquarters to show you guys something
really exciting
[Music]
spacex allowed us an extremely rare
opportunity
to actually film inside their
headquarters
for a chance to check out how they're
training nasa's next generation of
astronauts
for the commercial crew program now they
didn't let us just shoot willy nilly
anywhere
but we did get some really cool behind
the scenes look of some amazing things
in case you missed it we already gave
you a mini tour of spacex's
awesome spacesuit but as promised today
we're going to show you a crew dragon
mockup
the software trainer the ingress egress
trainer
and even one of the first crew dragon
capsules that will have
astronauts on board so first up let's
check out this mock-up
now keep in mind this is just a
high-fidelity mock-up
to give you a sense of scale but unlike
say a concept car
the mock-up looks a lot less cool than
the actual flight hardware
nevertheless let's hop inside alright so
i'm here in spacex's crew dragon capsule
looking up at the view here uh there's a
couple touch screens about three of them
and there's very few buttons this thing
looks like
basically like a set of ipads about
three of them
and then there's only two knobs on this
whole thing and about
40 buttons or so this is a very
minimalistic design
uh it's a pretty big change from say the
soyuz capsule
and right now where i'm sitting i don't
see the need for any of those poking
sticks
like they need on the soyuz capsule so
this is uh this is a pretty
good look here it it feels great uh it's
nice to see what this is really gonna
actually look like
in the future there's a lot more to
check out
[Music]
so next up we went inside to see the
flight trainer where astronauts learn
the dragon software inside and out
this is actually where the astronauts
are training
how to ride in the dragon capsule i i'm
gonna hesitate to say
they they're gonna fly the dragon
capsule because if all goes well
uh they're kind of out of a job as far
as pilots go because really this whole
thing is autonomous and all the screens
here
and all the buttons are basically for
information about you know they can
actually see things like
where's the next ground tracking station
are we going to actually have
communications with the ground
so you can see we're upcoming you know
blackout periods with with mission
control would be
um but they can even see things like
upcoming events they can they can scroll
up and actually see a tab of like oh
we're going to jettison the nosecone
here in a second and they can actually
get planning
on on where they're at in the mission
which is really cool
it kind of looks almost kerbal space
program ask if i dare say that where
it's just it's as you'd kind of expect
it's nice and simple and intuitive
and then there's of course manual
controls for some of the things that you
would want manual control over as a
contingency because of course
you know in a nominal situation and as
we hope to go
the astronauts pretty much just get a
hang out this is their autonomous ride
to space
and for the most part the only reason
they're even uh
are trained as a contingency because
otherwise this thing is just going to
take care of itself which is
a very 21st century way of having
a spaceship i love it
then we popped over to the ingress
egress trainer where crew is trained on
how to get in
buckle up and generally move around in
the dragon capsule and
believe it or not this is how it will
actually
look so come on down here this is
actually where crew is
really training as well so this is all
real test
articles uh that is currently configured
with four seats
obviously it'll fly first on the demo
mission and then the next two nasa
missions
will only have two seats but there is
room on the floor there's a lot of room
down there there's actually up to three
cargo pallets as well
which is kind of a good thing because
you can get multi-use out of it as well
might as well haul a bunch of cargo
while you're putting crew up as well
um these seats are uh not stationary
believe it or not they actually move
up to the screen into the controls which
is really cool um i know when the when
the dragon was revealed at first
elon pulled the screens down uh but this
is
a little different so that the seats
will actually actually up
getting you closer to the screen which
is uh
i never thought of doing that it's a
really cool way to do things
it's got that quintessential stark
beauty that is spacex and it's just
really cool to see it actually in person
because this is
uh as close to flight hardware as i'm
probably ever going to get so
it's really cool to see it up close and
personal like this and obviously you
have this is the
the main hatch where they they're going
to get in and out of from the white room
on 39a
and then up top there is actually a
separate docking port
and a separate way to get through that
in through the international docking
adapter when it's docked to the
international space station
it's really cool to see it up close and
personal and and it sounds like the
seats are kind of
constantly being tweaked and revised
even which is which is great because
they look phenomenal now so i just
i don't know how you'd improve upon it
but you can really get a sense for what
it's going to be like to fly in this
thing
oh it's stunning
[Music]
and with that we wrapped up our time
with the egress ingress trainer
and then went down on the factory floor
to actually see where the dragons are
being manufactured inside the clean room
wait our dragons manufactured or hatched
let's just call this the hatchery just
to be safe so i'm here at the clean room
where they process
dragon and crew dragon and behind me is
the pressure vessel
for crew dragon now the exciting thing
here is you can really see
why they're so adamant about wanting to
refurbish these things because can you
imagine throwing all this away
uh there's a lot of really high-end
expensive hardware on that thing so it
does make sense they're going to be
re-flying
the dragon capsules as well although it
does sound like they won't be reflying
dragon capsules for human use
it does sound like they'll tear these
crew dragon capsules down for reuse as
cargo vessels kind of like how they're
doing that right now with their current
dragon capsules
but this is all different from boeing
who'll be trying to reuse their
starliners up to 10
times you know mostly because they
actually land on land
but spacex will be reusing it but just
not for humans
so you can see down below uh on the
bottom side those are where the skirts
kind of end up they hide all of the fuel
tanks
so there's actually life support systems
and fuel tanks for those super dracos
that hide in there
and the regular rcs the reaction control
systems they have these
draco engines and so all of the tanks
actually go around the bottom of it
and then they put these cool looking
aerodynamic cones of
the skirts over top of that but this is
a good shot of it in process which
you don't always get to see
[Applause]
so this is all happening finally
we know the first four nasa astronauts
who will ride the first dragon capsules
we see the hardware the rockets are
getting ready
the launch pads are getting ready are
you getting ready
seriously this is going to be an
exciting chapter in space flight history
stick around for more and more videos to
get you ready for
these exciting times if you have any
space flight questions be sure and let
me know in the comments below
special thanks to my patreon supporters
for helping make trips like this
attainable
if you want to see more videos like this
head on over to patreon.com
everydayastronaut and a huge shout out
to my friend patrick lawler
for coming out and shooting this
incredible footage with his 6k
red dragon camera and while you're on
the internet pop on over to my web store
everydayastronaut.com to get your own
awesomely nerdy space shirts thanks
everybody that's gonna do it for me
i'm tim dodd the everyday astronaut
bringing space down to earth for
everyday people