Splashdown for SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft

On May 22 I posted about the launch of Dragon, an unmanned freight capsule, from Florida. The freight capsule has returned to Earth, marking the first historic mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by a private company, SpaceX. The cargo capsule landed off the California coast, atop its targeted location carrying two-thirds of a tonne of completed experiment and redundant equipment. Initially, Dragon left with half a tonne of food and supplies for the ISS, the goal of the mission being to demonstrate the freight service SpaceX plans to run to the ISS. The successful recovery of the capsule will create a contract between NASA and SpaceX for 12 more similar trips. As mentioned in the article, the contract would allow NASA to save money which they can invest into more daring missions, like Mars and asteroids. Meanwhile, SpaceX is working to develop safety and life-support equipment that would allow the transport of astronauts to and from the ISS.
Overall, this trip truly does mark the beginning of a new era in space travel.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18273811

Those at SpaceX must be very happy about their first successful mission. Personally I don’t really like the idea of the privatization of space travel. If these organizations get larger and more successful, then the best scientists and astronauts, if they’re paid enough, will go and work for private companies, which obviously wouldn’t be good for NASA. I guess it’s good right now for NASA because they can save money and use it on other endeavours. If SpaceX could come up with crew transport services faster than NASA can then I suppose that would be good for NASA as well. And if there were two or three major space organizations including NASA, maybe it would help push everyone more to make new discoveries and ideas, and it would also provide a lot more jobs. As long as there isn’t too much rivalry or an unwillingness to share ideas, then maybe it would be okay. I’m not really opposed to space tourism that much, because it’s just rich people wanting to go into outer space, and private companies providing them the opportunity to do so. So while I don't completely agree with the idea I can still see the positive aspects of it as well.