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This month, four astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) thanks to the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
It was a milestone for both NASA and SpaceX as the Crew Dragon’s first fully operational mission and marks its second manned flight. The US government and private agencies have been working together for nearly a decade to get more people into space.
This recent achievement also makes us think about what’s in store for the future of private space travel for the ISS and beyond. Astronomy collaborator Jean Creighton says that while the SpaceX mission may seem bright and new, it’s just the latest in private companies working with the government.
“People imagine this to be a brand new thing and possibly a deviation from what NASA was doing, but the Apollo missions required NASA to subcontract with 20,000 companies to make all the various parts they needed,” he notes. “So this is definitely a continuation of a tradition that has been established for 60, if not 70 years.”
Private companies are now more interested in space travel largely because they are becoming cheaper, according to Creighton. From having the technology to save and reuse materials that are easier to produce to having better computers to make the technology work, he expects more collaborations to continue in the future.
“I don’t think deep space will be occupied by private companies … [but] all these partnerships, these successful missions build confidence that the current partnerships NASA has with private companies could be as fruitful as previous ones, ”says Creighton.
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