“Hey, the rocket is crumpling, we have to go back up again,” he shouted to the pilots. Here, the pilots had a decision to make. They had a $200 million aircraft and two dozen lives to worry about. They were thinking it would be safer to simply open the plane’s large rear door, and jettison the unstable rocket into the ocean below. And in fact, had no one from SpaceX been on board the aircraft, they would have done just that. But instead, they followed Altan’s instruction. One of them replied “OK, boss,” and the C-17 immediately began to climb.
