Bob and Doug, the best friends on historic SpaceX-NASA mission
With their crew cuts, cool demeanor and short and precise sentences, they have all the traditional hallmarks of the men of NASA.The pair known as Bob and Doug met in 2000 when they began training at the space agency. They have been best friends ever since, said Hurley, 53.Behnken, 49, a Missouri native, holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.
He signed up for the military during his studies and trained at the elite Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California.The New York-born Hurley also rose to the rank of colonel. Before joining NASA he was a fighter pilot and test pilot in the Marine Corps, a specialist in the F/A-18 Super Hornet.In 2015, NASA assigned them their next mission: the first crewed flight of the Crew Dragon, built by SpaceX and initially planned for 2017.
It was through the astronaut corps that Behnken and Hurley met their future wives, both of whom have space missions to their credit.Doug is married to Karen Nyberg, and they too have a son, Jack, aged 10. The bond of friendship that unites the two men is an obvious asset for such a risky mission, where either man might have to take control of the spacecraft that is set to autopilot by default."If we have to get useless information, Doug is always the repository for that," joked Behnken in a video released by NASA.As for Behnken, Hurley said his friend thinks of everything ahead of time. "He's already got it all figured out.
"They both came back and they said, 'we're go for launch,'" said Jim Bridenstine, the space agency's administrator. "So they're ready to go."NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley, left, and Robert Behnken walk outside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on May 27, 2020.
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