SpaceX Launch Elon Musk and Jose Fernandez

SpaceX Launch Elon Musk and Jose Fernandez. During many dramatic events on the plant today happened gigantic historic event on Cape Canaveral (ones again). First “Private” or “Commercial” space capsule has been launched today to space on Cape Canaveral, Florida by Elon Musk. That is another very special day in human history where “Star Trek” mission begins. “The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!” This is the beginning of the Enterprise, first man on Mars, commercial jets to Moon, space travel… the only dreamer could imagine. May 30, 2020 is this day – new day in human history.

SpaceX Launch - CEO Elon Musk - astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley - NASA
SpaceX Launch – CEO Elon Musk – astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley – NASA
SpaceX Dragon V2 crew capsule - first commercial ship
SpaceX Dragon V2 crew capsule – first commercial ship

The statement:

“The return of human space flight launches to the United States after the end of the Space Shuttle Program and the incredible efforts of the men and women of NASA and SpaceX are the overriding themes of the crew patch for DM-2.
The patch is distinctly shaped in the form of the Crew Dragon and appropriate for the first crewed flight of this vehicle. The symbols of the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket are prominently displayed at the top of the patch. They pay tribute to the SpaceX Dragon and Falcon 9 teams that have dedicated years to design, develop, build, and soon operate this human rated system.
The familiar silhouette of the International Space Station is visible, flying across the North American night sky, and serves as the destination of this and future missions of Crew Dragon.
Both the NASA “vector” and the Commercial Crew Program symbol are shown prominently to honor the efforts of the Agency and its Program to return launch capability to the United States.
The silver star on the east coast of Florida highlights the location of Launch Pad 39A and the Kennedy Space Center from where humans have flown to space since the early 1960s and all Crew Dragon missions will originate.
The stars on either side of the crew’s names represent their respective family members. Each has a wife and son who are incredibly supportive and important to the success of the mission.
Finally, the flag of the United States is on the patch to represent all past and future American human space flight endeavors and to honor the men and women who developed and flew them.”

SpaceX Launch - astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley
SpaceX Launch – astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley

Many things could be said about Elon Musk. The most important of them all – he is a dreamer. He is inspired the movies (Ironman, for example), and the movies inspired him, and specially the Hollywood superhero costume designer Jose Fernandez, who created new NASA super-skinny pressure spacesuits for this flight.

SpaceX Launch - astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley - NASA
SpaceX Launch – astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley – NASA

But let’s start with the names. Falcon – the space project given by NASA to Elon Musk. Falcon is a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured by SpaceX. He named the company’s rockets after the “Millennium Falcon”, Han Solo’s spaceship in the “Star Wars” films. Elon Musk named his first commercial team “Dragon”, the name comes from “Puff the Magic Dragon,” the 1963 hit song by the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary. Elon Musk has said that he chose the name because many critics deemed SpaceX’s ambitious goals impossible when he founded the company in 2002. FYI did you notice during the launch today in the cabin with astronauts a little floating balloon in the shape of dragon? Here it is – a dream came true.

Crew Dragon DM-1 SpaceX-2 - Puff the Magic Dragon
Crew Dragon DM-1 SpaceX-2 – Puff the Magic Dragon
Elon Musk - Of Course I still Love you - Just Read the Instructions - spaceports drones ships
Elon Musk – Of Course I still Love you – Just Read the Instructions – spaceports drones ships

Elon Musk named all SpaceX Drone Ships in Honor of Sci-Fi Legends. He had named the company’s first spaceport drone ship “Just Read the Instructions.” The second autonomous boat, called “Of Course I Still Love You”. That is so darn romantic. These names came from the works of the late science fiction author Iain M. Banks “The Player of Games”.

Human Kind - artwork - Starman suits for SpaceX by Jose Fernandez
Human Kind – artwork – Starman suits for SpaceX by Jose Fernandez

Robotic Dragon capsule is a unique and one of its kind genius innovation, an ongoing effort to develop fully and rapidly reusable rockets. Such technology could dramatically reduce the cost of spaceflight. And Elon Musk succeeded. Another FYI actor Robert Downey Junior, Ironman, took many of his character quirks from Elon Musk. But he didn’t go that far as Elon Musk. This year for this man was indeed very fruitful. At the beginning of May 2020 he became a father. Elon Musk named his new born baby boy …… “X Æ A-12 Musk”! It means he tried to registered it this way in birth certificate. Yep….. he so believes in the great space feature of his son, that he didn’t see the need to use human names anymore. Elon Musk and singer Grimes, mother of the child, had to tweak their baby’s name to to “X Æ A-Xii” after California officials refused to register it, as it didn’t comply with state health codes. Elon Musk revealed the methodology behind the baby name included: “X, the unknown variable,” “Æ, my elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence)” and “A-12 = precursor to SR-17 (our favorite aircraft). No weapons, no defenses, just speed. Great in battle, but non-violent.” 

X Æ A-XII Musk - new baby boy Musk
X Æ A-XII Musk – new baby boy Musk

So when Elon Musk decided to ask Hollywood superhero costume designer Jose Fernandez (studio “Ironhead”) to design spacesuits for this mission it was not a surprise. Jose Fernandez is known to superhero comic world by the costumes of Ironman, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, all Avengers, Wonder woman – you can continue naming, all superhero costumes. It was not the first space adventure of Jose Fernandez, although it was the first one in the real life. He already created the astronaut suits for the movies. Although when he was first approached by SpaceX in 2016 to create the “spacesuits” he didn’t, at first, understood that it was for a real space effort, not a movie production about a space travel. “I didn’t know what SpaceX was, and I thought it was a film,” later Jose Fernandez said in interviews.

Avengers - Hollywood costume designer Jose Fernandez
Avengers – Hollywood costume designer Jose Fernandez

The SpaceX spacesuits are different from other spacesuits typically worn by astronauts because of their sleek design, and are being described as resembling a tuxedo. “Actually, what the SpaceX suits evoke most of all is James Bond’s tuxedo if it were redesigned by Tony Stark (Ironman character) as an upgrade for James T. Kirk’s (Captain of Enterprise in “Star Trek”) next big adventure. Streamlined, graphic and articulated, the suits are more a part of the pop-culture-Comic-Con continuum of space style than the NASA continuum,” said Elon Must to New York Times.

Hollywood costume designer Jose Fernandez designed Starman suits for SpaceX
Hollywood costume designer Jose Fernandez designed Starman suits for SpaceX

Jose Fernandez started to work on “Spaceman suits” already in 2016. After he presented the prototype designs for the SpaceX suits, they were worked on by spacesuit engineers to make them functional for flight. As per a BBC report, the helmets of these suits are 3D printed with touchscreen-sensitive gloves and the suit is all in one piece, and customized for the wearer.

SpaceX - astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley - French pop Daft Punk
SpaceX – astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley – French pop Daft Punk

The absolutely piece of art – design of the first commercial spacesuits having many secret technics of Jose Fernandez, sculptured by the body, based on cast masks, silicon shapes and pressed layers of fabrics. Design of helmet resembles the ultra-shy French pop duo Daft Punk, for who Jose Fernandez designed the costumes and helmets several years earlier.

It looks like Elon Musk brought the best of his “Dreamworks” to the final frontier and to the feature with hope that his son X Æ A-12 Musk will boldly go where no man has gone before.

Story by Eleonora de Gray, Editor-in-Chief of RUNWAY MAGAZINE with love and great admiration to eccentric genius Elon Musk and great costume designer Jose Fernandez.