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SpaceX rocket ship blasts off into orbit with 2 Americans - 13abc Action News
May 30, 2020 1 min, 54 secs
(AP) — 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.

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.

President Donald Trump, who came to Florida to watch, 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.

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.

“I think 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.

astronauts to and from the space station.

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.

The astronauts set out for the launch pad in a gull-wing Tesla SUV after Behnken pantomimed a hug of his 6-year-old son, Theo, and said: “Are you going to listen to Mommy and make her life easy?” Hurley blew kisses to his 10-year-old son and wife.

The next SpaceX voyage to the space station, set for the end of August, will have a full, four-person crew: three Americans and one Japanese.

A SpaceX capsule exploded on the test stand last year.

And Boeing’s first Starliner capsule ended up in the wrong orbit and was nearly destroyed during a test flight in December.

For SpaceX and the future of public-corporate space exploration, the stakes on Saturday were extraordinarily high.

Still, Musk said that he wasn't nervous about the launch on Saturday the way he was during the previous attempt.

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