‘ Back in the game’: SpaceX ship marks return of U. S. launches
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A rocket ship built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company thundered away from Earth with two Americans on Saturday, ushering in a new era in commercial space travel and putting the United States back in the business of launching astronauts into orbit from home soil for the first time in nearly a decade.
NASA’s Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken rode skyward aboard a white- and- black, bullet- shaped Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, lifting off at 3: 22 p. m. from the same launch pad used to send Apollo crews to the moon a half- century ago. Minutes later, they slipped safely into orbit.
“Let’s light this candle,” Hurley said just before ignition, borrowing the historic words used by Alan Shepard on America’s first human spaceflight, in 1961.
The two men are scheduled to arrive Sunday at the International Space Station, 250 miles above Earth, for a stay of up to four months, after which they will come home with a Right Stuff- style splashdown at sea, something the world hasn’t witnessed since the 1970s.
“We are back in the game. It’s very satisfying,” said Doug Marshburn, of Deltona, Florida, who shouted, “USA! USA!” as he watched the 260- foot rocket climb skyward.
SpaceX becomes the first private company to launch people into orbit, a feat achieved previously by only three governments: the U. S., Russia and China.
“This is something that should really get people right in the heart of anyone who has any spirit of exploration,” Musk, the visionary also behind the Tesla electric car company, said after liftoff, pounding his chest with his fist.
The flight also ended a nine- year launch drought for NASA. Ever since it retired the space shuttle in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take U. S. astronauts to and from the space station.
Over the last few years, NASA outsourced the job of designing and building its next generation of spaceships to SpaceX and Boeing, awarding them $ 7 billion in contracts in a public- private partnership aimed at driving down costs and spurring innovation. Boeing’s spaceship, the Starliner capsule, is not expected to fly astronauts until early 2021.
NASA plans to rely in part on commercial partners as it pursues its next goals: sending astronauts back to the moon within a few years, and on to Mars in the 2030s.
At a post- liftoff rally held at NASA’s massive 525- foot- high Vehicle Assembly Building, President Donald Trump commended Musk and proclaimed: “Today we once again proudly launch American astronauts on American rockets, the best in the world, from right here on American soil.”
He vowed the U. S. will be the first to land on Mars, promising a “future of American dominance in space.”
The first attempt to launch the rocket, on Wednesday, was called off with less than 17 minutes to go in the countdown because of lightning. On Saturday, stormy weather threatened, but the skies cleared in time.
Few Chicago Bears departures have hit fans as hard as founder and famed coach George Halas’ retirement announcement.
On May 27, 1968, Halas shocked fans by announcing his retirement, according to a front- page article of the Chicago Daily News.
Halas, who had an “arthritic hip condition,” told a Daily News reporter “half- kiddingly” that he began contemplating his retirement “when I tried to run after a referee who was pacing off a penalty against us and I wasn’t gaining on him.”
The lauded Bears coach said he felt tempted to stay on for another year for the team’s golden jubilee, “rounding out 50 years as a player and coach,” but Halas said he had no regrets.
The next big question was: Who would take the reins?
The coach assured readers he’d announce his replacement at a luncheon the following day, the report said, but rumors were already surfacing that Jim Dooley would be given the top job — and they proved to be right.