It’s long been the fever dream of mad men with too much money, like Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic.  Now, it’s a reality.  With a little help from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the commercial space transportation company SpaceX has become the first company to successfully launch a commercial space vehicle and successfully return to Earth.  To the victor goes the spoils, and PayPal cofounder Elon Musk is the victor in the high-stakes battle for commercial space supremacy (at least for now).

“Getting this far, this fast, has been a remarkable achievement,” said NASA’s acting director of commercial spaceflight development, Phil McAlister.  He stressed that space flight is “very, very difficult,” and added, “The purpose of the test flight is to learn.  So as long as we’re learning, and we have a clear path for demonstration flight two, we would consider that successful.”

Yesterday’s launch went off without a serious hitch once the hardware problem with the rocket was fixed.  This as the first of 20 flights to take place under the auspices of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.  California-based SpaceX has a $1.6-billion contract with NASA for twelve supply runs; Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corporation has a $1.9-billion contract for eight .

Tags: SpaceX, SpaceX Dragon, SpaceX Falcon 9, Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX is the first private space company to reach orbit, SpaceX reaches orbit, private company successfully launches rocket into space, private company goes to space, firsts, space exploration, private company goes to space, Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, Phil McAlister, NASA, Elon Musk

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