The Daily: A Dispatch From Outer Space

July 10, 2020

By Robert Jimison

From left: Robert L. Behnken, Christopher Cassidy and Douglas G. Hurley aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 63.NASA

Space, for the most part, is silent. The airless voids between galaxies are scattered with star dust — tiny molecules incapable of carrying sound waves through the dark.

There is, however, one small sonic corner within the vacuum. And for six minutes on Wednesday, The Daily heard outer space.

When we got on the phone with Mission Control in Houston, I forgot for a moment about the global pandemic and the nationwide protests against the police killings of Black Americans. While waiting to be patched through to Bob Behnken, Doug Hurley and Chris Cassidy, the three NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station, the child inside of me — who had attended Challenger space camp in Northwest Indiana and watched nearly every U.S. space launch — was filled with questions.

I wanted to know what it was like to circle the earth at 17,000 miles per hour, to sleep in zero gravity and to be throttled by G-forces while being rocketed into the outer layers of the atmosphere.

But in our brief window for a call, we decided instead to ask the human question this moment demanded, the one we were all asking each other these days: “How are you feeling?” We hoped they would share what this remarkable moment felt like from their interstellar perch.

Mr. Hurley told us that on the rare occasions he was able to peer out of the window, the signs of division and turmoil were not evident to him. “When you see the planet below, you don’t see borders, you don’t see the strife. You see this beautiful planet that we need to take care of,” he told us.

The astronauts’ view of our world resonated with us — offering a reprieve from our own reality. While we wanted to ask them more questions, we learned the hard way that when Mission Control says your time is up, they mean it. After exactly six minutes, we were ushered out of the interview — and back to earth.

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Raising the alarm on silent infections

Dr. Camilla Rothe, an infectious disease specialist at Munich University Hospital.Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times

For months, our team, like the rest of the world, has been consumed with questions about the coronavirus — how it spreads, how to stay protected from it and whether asymptomatic transmission is possible.

That latter question, especially, has been the most bewildering. Can someone without any symptoms spread the virus?

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Since February, our colleagues Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan have been puzzling over this mystery, knowing national policies hinged on the answer.

“It started with the question of, why are the messages so unclear on whether you need symptoms to be contagious?” Matt told us. “So we went looking for everyone who would know.”

Matt and Selam spent months tracking every development in the field. “We compiled every study on Covid-19 transmission into a big timeline document,” Matt said. “Then we set out to read and summarize them.”

Matt said one piece had stood out “from the moment it ran.” Dr. Camilla Rothe, an infectious disease specialist in Germany, published a paper documenting a case of asymptomatic spread in January, but her findings were initially dismissed.

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As evidence mounted that asymptomatic spread was possible, Matt drove to Munich to interview Dr. Rothe. Their conversation became foundational in Matt, Selam and David Kirkpatrick’s investigation into why health officials have for months dismissed claims of symptomless spread — and evolved into the seed for Thursday’s show.

On The Daily this week

Monday: Donald G. McNeil Jr. shares four new things we have learned about the coronavirus and how it spreads.

Tuesday: After President Trump declared that the goal of protests against police brutality was “the end of America,” we ask Maggie Haberman what this rhetoric reveals about his campaign for re-election.

Wednesday: Robert Gebeloff analyzes the government database counting coronavirus infections across the country, obtained exclusively by The Times. Then we call outer space.

Thursday: We speak with Dr. Camilla Rothe, an infectious disease specialist in Germany, who tried to sound the alarm about asymptomatic infections — and to Matt Apuzzo about why her warnings went unheeded.

Friday: With the Supreme Court ruling that President Trump is not immune from an examination of his finances, David Enrich and Adam Liptak explain the history behind the cases and what the decisions mean for presidential power.