On Friday, May 25, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. became the first private company to dock a spacecraft to the International space station.
This docking occurred two days after the launch, and after years of planning. Elon Musk, co-founder of Paypal Inc., was the mastermind behind this project and now has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to move goods to supply the space station.
SpaceX is the now dubbed name for this project and the big question is: can this form of space travel and transportation eventually become a low-cost and high-volume production house.
This marks a key point in the history of space exploration. NASA is ready to rely on private cargo vehicles and space taxis to take the crews to the international space station. If this project continues to be successful and other competitors start throwing their hats into the ring, the amount of spacecraft traveling from earth will increase greatly and humanity will begin its major growth into space.
Perhaps all it took for humanity to really start taking space exploration seriously was the notion that there would be a profit.
