Over the past six decades, hundreds of humans have launched into space. But when NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken blast off from Florida’s Cape Canveral…
Over the past six decades, hundreds of humans have launched into space. But when NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken blast off from Florida’s Cape Canveral in a SpaceX Crew Dragon Saturday if all goes according to plan, they’ll be the first to leave the planet in a truly modern vehicle — at least in the 21st century sense of the phrase.
Behnken and Hurley are set to ride the Dragon for what NASA is calling its Demo-2 mission, the first crewed flight to space aboard a commercial spacecraft in history and the first from US soil since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.
While NASA and SpaceX are touting these big milestones, there’s another key advance getting less lip service: astronauts are finally flying in style after a 40-year gap in tech.
Over the last 39 years, almost all trips to space have been made on just two types of spacecraft: the workhorse Soviet/Russian Soyuz system and NASA’s Space Shuttle (the exception is the Chinese space program, which has conducted six crewed launches of its Shenzhou spacecraft since 2003).
That means for almost four decades we have been strapping some of the most impressive individuals our species has to offer into vehicles designed in the 1970s and sending them into the cold, unforgiving vacuum of space.
Just imagine you’ve trained your entire life, dedicated yourself to becoming a leader at the top of your field and on the day you’re to begin the most important project of your career, you’re picked up outside your office by a weathered 1972 Ford Bronco.
