Welcome to a new and different space age: Elon Musk’s SpaceX took four NASA astronauts to the International Space Station this week – and brought Baby Yoda with them for good measure.
Just 27 hours after the liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center over the Falcon rocket, the Dragon Capsule approached the crew aboard the ISS. The passengers (three Americans and one Japanese astronaut) will spend six months on the ISS.
A team called Crew-1 called their ride “flexibility” – a reference to all the challenges posed by 2020. Really inspiring moment in a very intrusive year.
This was the second time in nearly a decade that NASA astronauts had orbited the U.S. from Earth. After the end of the space shuttle program in 2011, NASA had to rent seats from Russia.
But the fact that this mission relies on private companies to take astronauts into space is a sign of the beginning of regular crew rotation.
Thanks to Musk, his SpaceX team and NASA, America’s space program is really back – and better than ever.
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