WE HAVE LIFTOFF
John Raoux / AP Photo
It’s official:
Dragon
has launched. The private, unmanned space shuttle built by a
California’s SpaceX successfully launched early Tuesday morning from
Cape Canaveral, Fla.—the first mission by a spacecraft not commissioned
by the government. The
Dragon capsule blasted atop SpaceX’s
Falcon 9
rocket, and the space station was flying 249 miles above the north
Atlantic Ocean as the rocket lifted off, NASA officials said. If the
mission is a success, it represents a potential new stage in American
space exploration: NASA hopes low-Earth orbits will be privately funded,
allowing the space agency to focus on new spacecraft and missions to
Mars, as well as asteroids and the moon
