“The dawn of a new era in human spaceflight,” by Anne McClain, astronaut, showing SpaceX Crew Dragon approaching the International Space Station. Image: wikimedia.

Space is a new field, and firsts happen regularly. But this week’s milestone marks a signifiant new era for public and private cooperative success. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and NASA achieved delivery of astronauts Behnken and Hurley to the International Space Station. It’s also the renewal of American crew launches from the original place where humans first set off for the moon. SpaceX and Nasa will now move into a new phase of the $2.6bn contract to delivery six “space-taxi” flights to ISS.  Also aboard: a sequined toy dinosaur, sent aloft to accompany by the astronauts’ children. “Tremor” will be the first dinosaur to experience zero gravity, so the Apatosaurus also sports a leash.

NASA. “NASA Astronauts Launch from America in Historic Test Flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon.” 30 May 2020. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-astronauts-launch-from-america-in-historic-test-flight-of-spacex-crew-dragon/

Pearlman, Robert Z. “SpaceX ‘stowaway’ revealed by crew.” 31 May 2020. Space.com http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-053120a-spacex-dragon-tremor-dinosaur-doll.html.

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G. Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unp