You may have already noticed that I’m in Florida to cover the successful overnight launch of “Demo-1,” the first flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that’s meant to return manned launches to US launch sites. That flight certainly is dominating space news this week—you know you’re on a big story, when on your drive home the BBC News overnight breaks with the same event you just witnessed—but it wasn’t the only thing happening overhead this week. So while I am going to toss in more images and more information from the launch, there are other stories.  «Temporary Nebula»—Falcon 9 second stage ignites, lighting up column of exhaust from the first stage. Before the launch, NASA administrator Jim Bidenstine lead a Q & A session in which questions were divided about 50/50 between Bidenstine and the first four astronauts slated to fly in the SpaceX-built capsule. A lot of emphasis was placed on the way Crew Dragon has moved through the Commercial Crew program at NASA and how excited everyone was to see it so close to carrying humans. Then following the launch, Elon Musk joined Bidenstine and two of the astronauts for a session that was, somewhat hilariously, 99.9 percent questions directed at Musk until he became so obviously sleepy that Bidenstine took over. Asked whether he wished he could be flying on the Demo-1 mission, astronaut Mike Hopkins surprised some in the gung-ho audience by saying “No.” Both he and Victor Glover backed up the idea that, yeah, they were test pilots, and yeah, they wanted to get into space. That means taking risks. It doesn’t mean taking unnecessary risks. Experienced Shuttle pilot Doug Hurley fielded a question on how he liked the slick, on-glass interface of the highly automated Crew Dragon vs. the controls of the Shuttle. Despite what’s seen as relative simplicity meant to make the craft all but foolproof, both Hurley and fellow Shuttle pilot Bob Behnken declared they preferred the Tesla-like interface of the Dragon. “When there are 2,000 toggle switches, it’s really easy to flip the wrong one — and that can ruin your whole day,” said Hurley. In both sessions Bidenstine emphasized that space was an issue that cut across parties and generated enthusiasm across the political spectrum. He explained that he went to Congress to defend a boost in NASA’s budget, only to have a bipartisan committee give NASA about an 80 percent greater increase than he asked for. The enthusiasm for space, in both the public and Congress, is at a level not seen since Apollo. Musk reported that there’s not just a still camera in the capsule with test-dummy “Ripley,” but video that should record what it was like inside the capsule. Emphasis so far has been getting down the data to show how the heavily-instrumented capsule, and Ripley, handled the launch, but soon we’ll get to see that video. Don’t forget — docking of the Crew Dragon is on Sunday morning at around 6AM ET. This will be the first time an American capsule has tried to dock automatically with the station, as previous launches from SpaceX and others have been directed in using the robotic arm. Completing that docking is another important step in certifying the Dragon for manned flight. Okay, let’s go to other space stories. Read more