At a news conference from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, their first extensive public remarks since coming home, Behnken, 50, and Hurley, 53, described the tense final moments of their 64-day journey.
The duo endured tremendous, jolting forces as the SpaceX-built Crew Dragon, an acorn-shaped vehicle that had carried them to the International Space Station, fired rocket thrusters to slow its descent for re-entry, then pierced the outer atmosphere.
The two were launched to the International Space Station from Florida on May 31, embarking on a two-month journey to prove the Crew Dragon capsule safe for transporting humans to and from space