NASA is hoping that a recent space mission that sent a rocket ship built by Elon Musk’s company (SpaceX) might act as a sweet distraction to the garbage fire that is this year.
The rocket, carrying two American astronauts, launched safely on Saturday May 30th (local time). It was the first space mission of its kind in close to a decade, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
NASA’s Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are the men behind the voyage. They’ll be taking a casual trip to the International Space Station. It’s estimated they’ll arrive on Sunday morning, May 31st (Monday, Australian time) and remain in space for up to four months.
On the SpaceX space trip, Elon Musk told Aviation Week that his biggest concern was the journey back through Earth’s atmosphere:
“The part that I would worry most about would be reentry, which won’t happen, hopefully, for a few months from now,” he said.
The SpaceX CEO said he was worried about rotation leading to overheating.
“We’ve looked at this six ways to Sunday, so it’s not that I think this will fail. It’s just that I worry a bit that it is asymmetric on the backshell.”
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said that he hoped it would instil a sense of faith in America’s future, despite the current state of unrest.
“Maybe there’s an opportunity here for America to maybe pause and look up and see a bright, shining moment of hope at what the future looks like, that the United States of America can do extraordinary things even in difficult times,” he is quoted saying.
“Our country has been through a lot. But this is a unique moment when all of America can take a moment and look at our country do something stunning again, and that is to launch American astronauts on an American rocket from American soil to the space station,” Bridenstine continued.
While it’s certainly an incredible achievement, especially when you consider SpaceX is the first private company to send folks into space, I’m not sure even this is enough to detract from the current state of things.
I mean, if the confirmation of UFOs wasn’t enough to hold people’s attention, can this? I’m not especially convinced. But regardless, it’s still some exciting news to break up the otherwise incredibly heavy headlines.
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