As a part of its commercial crew initiative to help private companies build spaceships for low earth orbit access, in the year 2014, NASA gave contracts to Boeing and SpaceX. In an update, Elon Musk’s, head honcho of Space X released a statement that as a part of an initiative of resorting America’s dominance over the race to space, SpaceX will send its first astronauts into orbit as per the schedule in 2019.

Recently the agency also released the list of astronauts selected to fly to space on the SpaceX and boeing vehicles in 2019. The list consisted a mix of veteran fliers and no voices. The names include veterans like Michael Hopkins, Bob Behnken, Douglas Hurley as well as spaceflight novice but naval aviator Victor Glover.

SpaceX also unveiled these astronauts, who proudly posed in blue outfits in front of the module that is to take them to the ISS in 2019. One of the astronauts, Hurley speaking to the media said that it was a matter of great honor for him to be the part of the crew on the first flight and being a test pilot is like once in a generation kind of an opportunity for which he was thankful. He also said that a lot of work needs to be done.

The iconic space shuttle program ended in 2011 and the ISS flights will be the first to leave US soil and put people into the orbit. Though NASA astronauts have been taking flights to orbit outpost at a staggering cost of $ 80 million per seat on the spacecraft Soyuz, owned by Russia.

But, US report released in July 2018, questioned the possibility of SpaceX being able to send astronauts to space by 2019. Shotwell, the president of the aerospace manufacturer stated that as soon as it is able to ready to send men to space safely, the flight would take off. The unmanned flight to the International Space Station is scheduled in November 2018, while April 2019 is the date scheduled for a manned mission.

Space X Launches Two Earth Observers for NASA Besides Five Other Satellites

*Sourced from the Internet