FACTS
After nine years since the US last docked a spaceship at the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceX – the rocket company owned by Tesla’s Elon Musk – launched the Dragonship Endeavor into space on Saturday. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley were the pilots in another history-making endeavor, the first private spaceship to head into space with a crew. Previously, only nations had sent ships. Joshua Kutryk, a Canadian astronaut who was in the ISS control room at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston when they docked, greeted them and called the venture a “historic ride” and a “magnificent moment in spaceflight history.”
SpaceX flew over Nigeria on way to Space Station – Aviation ministerhttps://t.co/Aq1iQtIrWZ
— Punch Newspapers (@MobilePunch) June 2, 2020
OUTCOME
SpaceX’s mission was to determine whether their ship could safely deliver humans to space. If this is the conclusion made by NASA, SpaceX will be allowed to fly private astronaut crews on their ship and the ISS station can be staffed with a full crew. The New York Times wrote that “once astronauts begin using the capsule with regularity, space tourists could also begin to fly in it in the years to come.” While the voyage to the station was successful and safe, NASA will only deem the Endeavor a success once the astronauts are home safe on earth. Behnken and Hurley congratulated the team at Hawthorne, where SpaceX headquarters are located in California. Musk stated that SpaceX’s “ultimate goal is to make humanity a multiplanet species by making it possible to establish a city on Mars.”
Show Comments