"Space, For the Rest of Us"
(Video: IBNTIMES/NASA)
(HN, 5/22/12) - "Space is hard & unforgiving & there is still a lot of challenging work ahead for the SpaceX Dragon team. I would not pop the champagne corks just yet. But this is a moment to savor," says long-time space correspondent Miles O'Brien. For the 1st time since the US space shuttle Endeavour's wheels came to a halt on July 21, 2011, a US built spacecraft is back in motion, on its way to meet up with the International Space Station. It's now been more than 50 years since human beings 1st flew to space & little more than 500 of them have been there. Talk about the ultimate elite club. But things started looking a little brighter in the wee hours of this morning when entrepreneur Elon Musk's `SpaceX' developed Falcon 9 left launch pad 40 at Cape Canaveral in Florida, so the Dragon capsule can rendezvous with the ISS, fly in formation safely & then sidle up close enough to be grasped by the space station's robot arm - the 1st time ever a private entity (tho administered by NASA) will make such a visit. Dragon's 1st close encounter with ISS will happen on Friday, May 25th - a fitting moment as it will be the 51st anniversary of John F. Kennedy's audacious, historic speech to a joint session of Congress that set the US on its course to the moon. (Read more at PBS)