Up to Speed

摘要

Everyone who watched the liftoff of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on May 30 (far left) could feel that history was being made. This was the first time in nearly a decade that astronauts had launched into space from U.S. soil. It was also the first time they flew aboard a launch vehicle and a spacecraft (the Crew Dragon) that were manufactured and owned by a private space transportation company. Astronaut Doug Hurley-who, along with Bob Behnken, is now aboard the International Space Station-seemed to appreciate the significance of the moment when, seconds before ignition, he invoked the words of America's first astronaut, Alan Shepard: "Light this candle."