and we have mikko. >> confirmed. [ cheers and applause ] >> m vac ignition. >> all right. we have stage separation. >> well, to our two astronauts joining our coverage, peggy and chris, i don't know much, but the black stuff looks like it's in space already having left the space coast of florida. peggy, your reaction to what we are witnessing. >> so this is fantastic. we've gotten through the first stage. we still have a ways to go, several more minutes before they'll get all the way to orbit, but it's great. in the meantime, the spacex team is going to be bringing back that stage 1 at the same time, so we'll be seeing that landing probably at the same time as these guys continue up into orbit. it's about a little over 8 1/2 minutes for them to get there. i think it's amazing you go from 0 to 17,500 miles an hour in 8 1/2 minutes. >> and people at home heard that number correctly. considered the nominal speed for orbit, 17,500 miles per hour along with our usual proviso, don't try this at home or on the interstate. chris hadfield, for those of us with any age on us, the nu