NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, the first one inside the docked capsule, said the Dragon looks as if it carries about as much cargo as his pickup truck back home in Houston. It has the smell of a brand new car, he added.
“I spent quite a bit of time poking around in here this morning, just looking at the engineering and the layout, and I’m very pleased,” Pettit said from the brilliant white compartment.
To protect against possible debris, Pettit wore goggles, a mask and a caver’s light as he slid open the hatch of the newest addition to the International Space Station. The complex sailed 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Tasman Sea, just west of New Zealand, as he and his crewmates made their grand entrance. The atmosphere was clean; no dirt or other particles were floating around.
“This event isn’t just a simple door opening between two spacecraft — it opens the door to a future in which U.S. industry can and will deliver huge benefits for U.S. space exploration,” the Space Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group, said in a statement.
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