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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

SpaceX Crew Back On Earth After California Splashdown; Free Press Advocates Condemn FBI Raid On Journalist's Home; NASA Holds Press Conference After SpaceX Crew Return. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired January 15, 2026 - 05:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[05:30:00]

DAVID WOLF, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: That's called extincting. And when you get back that reflex doesn't exist and you need it when you're in gravity, right? There's no such thing as standing up in gravity. You're always laying down no matter which way your body is. So -- and suddenly you're on Earth where standing up is very important to keep the blood pressure up in your head, but your body hasn't had to do it in months and months.

So the body is reacting naturally to space and adapting. It's almost brilliant that it does it --

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Um-hum.

WOLF: -- but it makes it inappropriate to come back to Earth. So the countermeasures are designed to prevent, in some cases, the adaption to space and make you more resilient and resistant.

For instance, when we go to Mars, we have to go a long zero-G transit -- six months, a year, a year and a half even. And now you get to Mars. That's one-third gravity. Is that more like one G? Is it more like zero G? We don't know. So -- but we know there has to be a lot of heavy-duty function on Mars when we -- our crews get there.

So it's about preservation.

SOLOMON: Yeah.

WOLF: The countermeasures are pretty good now, by the way. They've gotten a lot better since I had my losses. They don't have that anymore.

SOLOMON: You know, it's interesting, David, as I -- as I hear you sort of outline all of the stresses and stressors that space travel takes on your body.

It's even more incredible to see how happy and how positive and how upbeat all of the astronauts are as they come back down. I mean, I even feel like I saw one of them sort of like, you know, pumping in the air like this. Pumping in the air. So it's just been incredible to watch, David.

WOLF: Um-hum.

SOLOMON: We really appreciate you being with us for the last hour or so to give us your expertise and insights. Thank you so much, sir. Have a great morning.

WOLF: Earth's a great place. Enjoy it.

SOLOMON: It sure is. All right -- thank you.

And still ahead, why free speech advocates are condemning an early- morning raid on the home of a Washington Post journalist.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:36:45]

SOLOMON: Welcome back to EARLY START. This is your business breakout. The time now is 5:36.

Here is where U.S. futures stand ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street. All green across the board at this early hour. Dow futures pretty much flat though. Nasdaq futures up, let's call it, three- quarters of one percent.

All right. Checking some other headlines today in the business world.

The White House says that President Trump has enacted a 25 percent tariff on certain advanced computing chips. The tariffs will not apply to chips that are imported to specifically boost U.S. tech infrastructure. CNN has reached out to the White House for more details since it's unclear which imports would qualify for the exemption.

Verizon says that it has resolved an hourslong outage that's believed to have affected tens of thousands of people. Disruption cut off access to voice and data services for much of Wednesday leaving customers without the ability to make phone calls, send text messages, or use data. Verizon has apologized for the outage and says that it plans to provide account credits to those impacted.

And Microsoft is hoping to generate some goodwill in the areas where it's building AI data centers. The tech giant says that it will ask to pay higher electric bills in those communities to keep electricity prices from rising for local residents. This is a really big issue. The data centers have caused concern over the massive amounts of power they tend to consume.

Free press advocates are condemning the FBI's early-morning raid on the home of a Washington Post reporter. Agents seized several electronic devices from reporter Hannah Natanson on Wednesday as part of an investigation into a government contractor.

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement saying that the raid "...ignores longstanding protections for journalists' work material," and called it a "...blatant violation of journalistic protections," saying that it "undermines the public's right to know."

CNN's chief media analyst Brian Stelter has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST (voiceover): Tonight, new alarm in newsrooms across America after the FBI executed a search warrant at the home of a Washington Post reporter. FBI agents looking for Hannah Natanson's devices, seized a phone, two computers, and a Garmin watch.

HANNAH NATANSON, REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: I think our reporting did show that --

STELTER (voiceover): Natanson is not accused of any wrongdoing. The search warrant related to the case of government contractor in Maryland who was arrested last week.

FBI director Kash Patel said an unnamed Post reporter was "found to allegedly be obtaining and reporting classified, sensitive military information from a government contractor." Patel said the alleged leaker is in custody.

And later in the day, President Trump raised eyebrows by saying this.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The leaker has been found and is in jail right now. And that's the leaker on Venezuela. We had a very bad leaker.

STELTER (voiceover): It is not a crime for journalists to receive and report on leaks in the U.S., but it certainly is a sore spot for Trump.

TRUMP: We have leakers all over this place. But a lot of isn't leaks here. A lot of it's just made up by the newspapers.

STELTER (voiceover): That was Trump in 2020 during one of his countless tirades against the media.

Today's FBI search may be turning words into actions.

GABE ROTTMAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF POLICY, REPORTERS COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: It's a tremendous escalation by the administration and their intrusion into the independence of the press. The Justice Department has never executed a search warrant at the home of a reporter in a national security leak case.

[05:40:05]

STELTER (voiceover): At the Post's headquarters today reporters gathered around Natanson's desk asking what happened during the raid and sharing support for her.

One Post colleague writing online, "This is an outrage" and urging people to read her recent stories like this one, calling 2025 "The year Trump broke the federal government." In a late December column, Natanson said more than 1,000 tipsters from inside the government sent her messages on Signal alerting her to changes and cutbacks at their workplaces. And last week she was one of six reporters who wrote an exclusive story about Venezuela, citing secret government documents obtained by the Post.

Brian Stelter, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOLOMON: A SpaceX crew is back on Earth after five months in space. What comes next for the astronauts whose stay at the International Space Station had to be cut short?

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:45:20]

SOLOMON: Welcome back. We are just moments away from NASA beginning a press conference after the successful return of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule to Earth. The space agency made the decision to bring the four-person crew home a month early after one of the astronauts was experiencing a health concern. Now, NASA has not disclosed which crew member it might be or what the problem might be. Maybe we may learn when this press conference begins; maybe not.

Let's bring in the editor-in-chief of Space.com, Tariq Malik. Tariq, it's been great to have you the last hour or two as we watched the splashdown, as we watched them get off of the capsule and onto the recovery ship.

You've been covering space for a very long time. What are you expecting to hear in this press conference and what might they not disclose? What do you think?

TARIA MALIK, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, SPACE.COM: Well, I know for one thing that we will most likely not hear two things. Number one, any specifics about which crew member was afflicted by this medical issue that caused this early evacuation -- first of its kind for the International Space Station program -- nor will we know exactly what the concern itself was unless, of course, the astronaut chooses eventually to volunteer that information.

What I do expect is to hear from higher ups at NASA -- you know, hopefully, the administration, Jared Isaacman, about the status of the crew themselves.

SOLOMON: Tariq, if I can hop in right here. Just stand by one minute because the press conference is beginning, and then we'll discuss on the other side. Let's listen together.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. Before we get started, we'll begin with opening remarks from administrator Isaacman.

JARED ISAACMAN, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Good morning, everyone.

At 3:41 a.m. Eastern time SpaceX Dragon Endeavor spacecraft successfully splashed down off the coast of California in pristine weather. This is -- this mission brought Crew-11 safely home. NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov are all safe and in good spirits. All crew members are currently undergoing the routine post-splashdown medical evaluation.

The crew member of concern is doing fine. We will share updates on their health as soon as it's appropriate to do so.

Over the past five months aboard the International Space Station, Crew-11 completed a series of demanding and productive mission objectives.

The crew spent more than 850 hours on scientific studies, including research on bone loss and microgravity and the long-term storage of cryogenic fluids in space with direct applications in medical and industrial fields. This work advanced our understanding of long- duration space flight and contributed valuable research that benefit life here on Earth and further human exploration.

To be overwhelmingly clear, Crew-11 was a very successful mission.

While this was the first time we had to return crew slightly ahead of schedule, NASA was ready. The team responded quickly and professionally, as did the teams across the agency, working closely with our commercial partners and executed a very safe return. This is exactly why we train and this is NASA at its finest.

Spaceflight will always carry some degree of uncertainty. That is the nature of exploration. Fundamentally, it's why we're in space -- to learn. It's why NASA prepares for the unexpected so we are ready to respond decisively and safely. The successful return of Crew-11 is a direct result of that preparation.

I want to personally thank the teams across NASA, SpaceX, and our international partners who made this possible. Your professionalism, discipline, and commitment to crew safety were on full display. Because of your work, four astronauts are home safe and will soon be reunited with their families.

You did this while making preparations for Crew-12, for Artemis 2, and doing the other things at NASA while we pursue our great mission of science and discovery. Well done.

Now I'll turn it over to Joel Montalbano, Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Operations Mission Directorate.

JOEL MONTALBANO, DEPUTY ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATION FOR SPACE OPERATIONS MISSION DIRECTORATE, NASA: Thank you, Jared. And thank you again for joining us on this Dragon Crew-11 splashdown press brief.

Just a couple of things. An awesome landing. We had -- the winds at the landing site were less than three knots. The wave period was very small. I think we saw about a 2 1/2-foot. But just an extremely perfect landing opportunity today and it was awesome to see the team take advantage of it and work towards this.

It was just about a week ago that the decision was made to bring this crew home early. I can tell you we used the standard processes. The nominal landing support -- the nominal landing support from NASA, SpaceX, the international partners. The team meticulously went through all the processes to get ready for landing and we executed the same processes and the same landing support that we would have done if we'd brought this crew home in late February.

So just a huge thanks to everybody. And you saw the result of that today.

[05:50:00]

This crew was in space just under 170 days. They performed a little less than 900 hours of science experiments onboard. Those are hands-on science experiments. And that encompassed about 140 different experiments. They saw five spacecraft arrive; three spacecraft depart.

And the work we did on the International Space Station for this position, as well as others, benefits humanity on Earth. It benefits and teaches us for exploration for what we're going to use in the Artemis program as we go back to the moon and to Mars. Just a huge effort across the board by the team.

In closing, I want to just thank the team.

I do say one thing -- that we did make a decision prior to today -- a couple of days earlier -- that we were bringing the crew to a medical facility in the San Diego area. You know, off the San Diego area. And so the crew will stay there -- they'll stay there overnight and we expect to bring the crew back to Houston on Friday, obviously pending the medical.

And, you know, we do this. We bring the crew there. We do the medical activities that Dr. Polk talked about with you a couple of days ago -- things we can only do on Earth.

We're also doing the post-flight data collection on this crew. Every crew has a number of things that they've signed up for. We collect the data and we use that to learn -- help us in exploration.

Also to give the crew some rest, right? It's been a busy time for them. We've been working them extremely hard throughout the expedition. It's been a long day. Give them some rest and everything with that. They'll be staying overnight.

So with that, I'll hand it back over to George.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great. And with that, we'll move into questions.

Our first question comes from Bill Harwood with CBS News.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And with that, we'll move into questions. Our first question comes from Bill Harwood with CBS News.

BILL HARWOOD, CBS NEWS: Yeah, hey, it's Bill Harwood. Can you guys hear me?

ISAACMAN: Loud and clear.

HARWOOD: Oh, thank you very much. Listen, I've got a Crew-12 Artemis 2 question since Crew-11 is on the ground and you're looking at moving up Crew -- I'm sorry. I'm hearing some crosstalk. Are you all hearing me OK?

ISAACMAN: We hear you reasonably well.

HARWOOD: All right. Do you want me to try again?

ISAACMAN: Just -- we were getting your question if you want to complete it.

HARWOOD: Yeah, let me -- I'm sorry about that. Yeah, it's a Crew-12 Artemis 2 question -- and with 11 down on the ground and Crew-12 being accelerated. I guess what I'm wondering is what sort of separation you need between Artemis 2 and Crew-12 in terms of the port crew staging? You've got comms with DSN and Tetris and all that kind of stuff. I mean, there must be some minimum separation to avoid the kind of overlap that would prevent that.

And it looks like you're really trying to do it. You're trying to get Artemis 2 off in the February window. But if you move up Crew-12 there has to be some minimum separation I would think. I'm just -- I'm just wondering how realistic it is both of those missions can get off in early February. Thanks.

ISAACMAN: Maybe I can -- I can start and Joel, if you want to give maybe some of the technical components to that, like on comms and such.

I would just say that this is exactly what we should be doing at NASA. Um -- I mean, we have the means as an agency and it should be expected of our agency to be able to bring our astronauts home at any time as required under circumstances like this, which is exactly what we did today with Crew-11 while making preparations to pull forward our next mission, like Crew-12. While also making -- progressing on our Artemis 2 campaign for what is going to be probably one of the most important human spaceflight missions in the last half-century.

I mean, I took a briefing a couple of weeks ago on what happens in that what I would describe as the extremely unlikely event that we need to use two suit-up rooms at nearly the same time. And I was like what a great problem it would be for the agency to have that.

Now, what I would say is every one of these campaigns, while there is some overlap of some personnel and roles, our parallel efforts -- we bring our crew home. We make preparations for our next crew to the International Space Station with Crew-12.

We continue to go through the motions with Artemis 2, of which we've already stated we are not going to specify which launch date we are going to pursue within the already published windows until we have Artemis 2 out at the pad and we get through a wet dress to give us the confidence.

So at this point I don't see any reason why we wouldn't continue along those parallel paths. And if it comes down to a point in time where we have to find -- where we have to deconflict between two human spaceflight missions, that is a -- that is a very good problem to have at NASA.

[05:55:00]

MONTALBANO: You're exactly right. That's exactly what we're doing. The commercial crew and ISS program are working to look at, you know, what we can accelerate. You have to back up a few days from your picked launched date, as you know, for static fire. And then you have to do some reconfiguration at Kennedy Space Center in order to support from the Artemis work to the static fire.

And so we'll lay out all those timelines and look at how everything is going and then make the decision as we get a little closer. The teams are already looking at stripping down -- you know, what makes sense and what we can do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And our next question will come from --

SOLOMON: All right. Let's bring back our guest who has been with us for the last hour or two, Tariq Malik, who is editor-in-chief of Space.com.

Tariq, I want to let you finish your thought but first, just for our audience who is just joining us, a few sort of takeaways from what we've heard from the NASA administrators there updating us that the four astronauts onboard the SpaceX Crew-11 are safe and in good spirits. The crew member in concern is apparently doing fine. And they say they will share updates as soon as it's appropriate.

Tariq, your takeaways from what we just heard there.

MALIK: Yeah. You know, it is good to hear that at least that this whole goal of this early return to Earth -- this medical evacuation at the Space Station in which you get the stable astronaut that was experiencing the issue home safely and to get access to medical care. That all seems to have gone off exactly as planned.

As we heard the NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, say that the crew member is doing fine and that is was a pretty nominal return from Joel Montalbano, the ISS program director there. Everything seemed to go quite well there.

We did hear that the crew is going to stay in San Diego at a hospital overnight, which was -- it is interesting that it's the entire crew that's going to do that, but they do have some standard post- splashdown medical checks just to make sure that everyone is readapting as expected after a prolonged period in weightlessness that comes from a space like this. So that is a bit of a departure. You would expect maybe only the

afflicted astronaut to do it, but this will also allow them to keep that medical privacy issue that is very important in this situation upfront by keeping all of the astronauts there rather than just the one that's afflicted there.

SOLOMON: Yeah, that's a fair space because, I mean, I certainly don't cover space the way you cover space, but I thought that was interesting too that they were keeping all four of them overnight in San Diego. And even that seemed like there was a bit of a dot, dot, dot. They said depending on what happens in terms of the evaluations, then the plan is to take them to Houston tomorrow.

Give us a sense of what happens --

MALIK: Yeah.

SOLOMON: -- now in terms of the data, the evaluations. What happens now after these sort of medical evaluations?

MALIK: Yeah. So typically, after this post-splash on medical checks, the astronauts do return back to Houston. It's the home of NASA's Astronaut Corps.

Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, the NASA astronauts on this flight, would then eventually begin a prolonged period of rehabilitation to rebuild their muscles, rebuild their bone density, as we heard David Wolf mention earlier in the -- in the -- in the show.

And then also, the partner astronauts, Kimiya Yui and Oleg Platonov, will then depart and head back to their respective home countries and space agencies for their own debriefings and overviews.

For Zena Cardman, this is her first spaceflight. Most likely after that rehabilitation period, she'd get ready to enter training for the next flight. So she joined in 2017 and has a long career ahead of her.

Mike Fincke, you know, will have his own decisions about what he wants to do next. He's a father of three and with the Astronaut Corps for quite some time. A former -- a retired Air Force test pilot. You know, he'll decide if he's going to stay with the agency or what his next flight might be.

SOLOMON: Um-hum.

MALIK: I think everyone wants to go to the moon with the Artemis program that we heard earlier.

SOLOMON: Yeah. One thing we heard from NASA earlier in regards to Mike Fincke is that he has apparently spent 549 total days in space.

MALIK: Yeah.

SOLOMON: So a remarkable career no matter which way you look at it and no matter what he decides to do next. Tariq, before I let you go, one thing we just heard -- 850 hours of

research for this SpaceX Crew-11. One hundred forty different experiments.

Give us a sense of some of what they've been learning. What they've been studying.

MALIK: Yeah. One of the chief goals of these missions to the Space Station is to just learn what we're learning now with this medical evacuation -- how the human body responds to prolonged exposure to weightlessness.

But they also study things like new viruses. In fact, Mike Fincke was part of the study on a previous mission to develop vaccines for, I believe it was salmonella at that point in time. For diseases and also ne materials too, producing better refined materials for --

SOLOMON: Um-hum.

MALIK: -- the tech industry -- for anything else like that.

[06:00:00]

And then also setting the stage for a return to the moon. As we heard today, NASA is getting ready to launch astronauts to the moon for the first time. When they're out there they have to be on their own for a prolonged period --

SOLOMON: Um-hum.

MALIK: -- and learning how to deal with these types of medical situations would be very key to that.

SOLOMON: Yeah.

Tariq, we appreciate you being with us. Look, I always love guests who make us excited about what they're excited about and you, my friend, did that today. Thank you so much.

And thank you for being with us here for these last few hours as we watched this breaking news coverage. I'm Rahel Solomon live in New York. I'll see you tomorrow. But "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.