It appeared like the last scene of a film, the denouement of a long experience in which the heros lastly dominate. Azure skies and fantastic blue seas offered an ideal background on Tuesday night as a spacecraft bring 4 individuals neared the world’s surface area.

“Just breathtaking views of a calm, glass-like ocean off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida,” commented Sandra Jones, a NASA representative, throughout the webcast co-hosted by the area firm and SpaceX, whose Dragon automobile returned the 4 astronauts from orbit.

A drone near the landing website caught amazing pictures of Crew Dragon Flexibility as it gradually came down below 4 parachutes. The majority of NASA’s astronauts today, beyond the little neighborhood of spaceflight fans, are fairly confidential. Not 2 of the guests inside LibertyButch Wilmore and Suni Williams. After 9 months of travails, 286 days to be exact, they were lastly getting back.

Dragon continued its magnificent descent, being up to 400 meters, then 300, and after that 200 above the ocean.

Kate Tice, an engineer from SpaceX on the webcast, kept in mind that goal impended. “We’re going to stand by for splashdown located in the Gulf of America,” she stated.

Ah, yes. The Gulf of America.

This is why we can’t have good things.

A throne of lies

For those people who have actually carefully followed the story of Wilmore and Williams over the last 9 months– and Ars Technica has had its share of unique stories about this long and unusual legend– the last weeks before the landing have actually seen it take a troubling turn.