CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - MAY 27: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon spacecraft attached sits on launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on May 27, 2020 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Later today NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are scheduled to liftoff today on an inaugural flight and will be the first people since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 to be launched into space from the United States.
Watching Americans aren’t the only ones on pins and needles today as Elon Musk’s SpaceX prepares to send astronauts into space for the first time from US soil in nearly a decade.
A successful launch would not only mark the first for a private company, but would be a giant leap into a new era of space exploration, Business Insider reports.
A success today would mean no more hitching rides aboard Russian rockets and that means lower cost rides for the US, more trips to the International Space Station and more experiments in space.
It also signals an unofficial start of commercial space exploration and tourism.