00:00Well, first and foremost, we all wanted to give a shout-out to our families first,
00:03because we are pretty far from Earth, and we have not gotten to say hi to them yet.
00:07But there was a moment about an hour ago where Mission Control Houston reoriented our spacecraft
00:14as the sun was setting behind the Earth, and I don't know what we all expected to see in that
00:18moment,
00:18but you could see the entire globe from pole to pole.
00:22You could see Africa, Europe, and if you looked really close, you could see the northern lights.
00:28It was the most spectacular moment, and it paused all four of us in our tracks.
00:33Well, I think probably one of the things that surprised all of us is when those solid rocket boosters actually
00:39lit,
00:39and we left the pad.
00:40It was just a moment of disbelief, and, yeah, the fact that we launched, it just totally takes you by
00:48surprise,
00:48even though you were expecting it, at least for me anyway.
00:51And I just had a huge smile across my face.
00:54One of the biggest surprises was how smooth riding those solids was.
00:59We all expected a really just dynamic ride, a lot of motion.
01:02We were prepared to potentially not being able to see telemetry,
01:06maybe even not being able to, you know, touch switches, and it was very smooth.
01:12It was a definite difference when they separated, and we were just on the main engines,
01:17but just a steady rumble and a great ride.
01:21First and foremost, I would just like to say thank you.
01:24Your support and trust in us has enabled this and so many people that have worked for so long to
01:30make this possible.
01:31But also, we're just getting started.
01:33You know, we've worked really hard, and even though we were a little surprised to actually launch yesterday,
01:37we have a lot of mission left ahead of us.
01:39And so I really want to tell them to stay tuned and keep tabs on what's going on.
01:44NASA's doing a great job.
01:47There has been a tremendous amount of disbelief for me.
01:50It's just so extraordinary.
01:53I just kept saying to them yesterday, like, I really like it up here.
01:58I wish I could have got here sooner.
02:00It's just such a tremendous place to be.
02:02The views are extraordinary.
02:04It's really fun to be floating around, and it just makes me feel like a little kid.
02:10It was pretty tense moments there for a second, and when we got done that burn, we just kind of
02:16looked at each other as a crew.
02:17We had been to the moon before 1969, 1968 through 1972.
02:21It's been a long time since we've been back, and I've got to tell you, there is nothing normal about
02:25this.
02:26Sending four humans 250,000 miles away is a Herculean effort, and we are now just realizing the gravity of
02:33that.
02:33Having just experienced incredible views of planet Earth and seeing the entire planet out the window in one pane, knowing
02:43that we're about to have some similar views of the moon in that same way is definitely getting me more
02:49excited for it.
02:50I knew that that is what we would see, but there's nothing that prepares you for the breathtaking aspect of
02:56seeing your home planet both lit up bright as day and also the moon glow on it at night with
03:03the beautiful beam of the sunset and knowing that we're going to get similar views of the moon.
03:09I'm just, I'm really excited for that.
03:12And then, of course, heading home.
03:13Right now, we're in our cruise phase outbound, but we'll be turning our sights back on our home planet shortly.
03:19Shorter, probably.
03:21It's going to fly by, but we're just excited for both of those milestones.
03:29Well, the first thing I would say is trust us.
03:31You look amazing.
03:32You look beautiful.
03:33And from up here, you also look like one thing.
03:36You know, Homo sapiens is all of us.
03:38No matter where you're from or, you know, what you look like, we're all one people.
03:43And so, you know, this mission, one of the things that's amazing about being around and just being an astronaut,
03:50you know, serving our countries at this time is that we get to give ourselves a mission that we can
03:56hold on to to say, hey, look at what we did for the rest of our lives.
04:00You know, we call amazing things that humans do moonshots for a reason, because this brought us together and showed
04:06us what we can do when we put, not just putting our differences aside, when we bring our differences together
04:11and use all the strengths to accomplish something great.
04:14And so this mission will give us one of those that we all can remember and hold on to for
04:19the rest of our days.
04:20And I hope people will tune in and give us a chance.
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