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SpaceX Video Shows Hints of Crew Dragon Capsule, New Spacesuit

Aside from launching a red Tesla Roadster into the blackness of interplanetary emptiness, SpaceX has other big plans for the year ahead.
SpaceX astronaut costume 1 photo
Photo: Youtube screenshot / SpaceX
Currently, SpaceX is transporting various items to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA using Falcon boosters and Cargo Dragon capsules. In the not-so-distant future, it plans to send humans there as well.

The modified, human-friendly versions of the cargo capsule will be called Crew Dragon, or Dragon 2, and will help send people to space and beyond. To do that, SpaceX is also working on new spacesuits to be used by astronauts.

Both technologies have once again been previewed by Elon Musk’s company in a new video shown on the company’s YouTube channel.

Usually, space pods the likes of which SpaceX is working on are rather austere pieces of equipment made not for comfort, but for performing a task. The private space company, however, plans to offer the capsules later this year complete with carbon fiber and Alcantara cloth.

Aside from sending astronauts to the ISS, SpaceX also plans to use the seven-passenger capsules to transport people to yet unbuilt stations, like the Bigelow Commercial Space Station.

In early 2017, Elon Musk said he plans to send two private citizens on a free return trajectory around the moon in less than two year's time. He didn’t name the two citizens, but he did say they already paid a significant deposit and were to begin health tests.

And if you think all of the above is wishful thinking, think again. In a very short period, SpaceX achieved an amazing number of milestones.

In 2008, the Falcon 1 became the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit. Two years later the Dragon became the first privately funded spacecraft to be launched, to orbit the planet and to be recovered.

SpaceX was the first private company to supply the ISS in 2012, and there have been nine other missions to the space station flown by SpaceX since.

It was the first to manage to land an orbital rocket in 2009, the Falcon 9, and earlier this year managed to send through space a Tesla Roadster time capsule for future space-faring generations to find.

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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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