USA is back in manned spaceflight c/o Musk's SpaceX

[OutdoorLover]

Smooth sailing for the crewed-Dragon mission this past weekend. I held my breath, but everything (so far) has gone well.

Big kudos to SpaceX, there is nothing routine about rocketry. They have had their setbacks, but they've persisted, and now they are delivering well and at a substantial discount versus Boeing's Starliner project, which is still being debugged.

https://www.geekwire.com/2020/closer...liftoff-glory/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-...space-station/

[karlsch]

I was a little nervous, too. Everything went off perfectly. The stage separations were great to watch. For me, at least, this is a bigger thing than the Tesla electric car.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by karlsch

I was a little nervous, too. Everything went off perfectly. The stage separations were great to watch. For me, at least, this is a bigger thing than the Tesla electric car.

Yep, there is nothing routine in rocketry. Both NASA and SpaceX have had scary failures during testing where the hardware blew up in spectacular fiery explosions.

I think these astronauts also deserve kudos. You've got the risk of the thinly tested hardware, and then the very unforgiving environment.