It was a movie come to life when the world’s first commercially produced spacecraft launched two astronauts into outer space this May.
As astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken were blasted into space in the SpaceX Crew Dragon, they made history as the first people to leave Earth in a spacecraft designed and manufactured in the private sector.
Marvelling at the capsule’s sleek design, a world in lockdown watched the historic countdown at Kennedy Space Centre. This was the first manned spaceflight from US soil in a decade, and the rocket launched from the same pad as the 1969 Apollo 11 moon mission – with more than an iota of that pinnacle moment’s magic.
This is NASA’s first collaboration with a commercial company, and there’s another with Boeing in the pipeline.
In an interview with the Everyday Astronaut, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said he wants this to be “the dawn of a new era” in which we “open up space for humanity”.
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