NASA Chief Visits History-Making Private Space Capsule NASA
chief Charlie Bolden got an up-close look Wednesday (June 13) at
SpaceX's unmanned Dragon space capsule, the first private
vehicle ever to dock with the International Space Station.
Bolden viewed the Dragon capsule at SpaceX's Rocket Development
Facility in McGregor, Texas, where he joined company CEO and
chief designer Elon Musk. The two men thanked the more than 150
SpaceX employees who work at the facility for helping make
Dragon's groundbreaking flight possible. "The Dragon capsule is
a tangible example of the new era of exploration unfolding right
now," Bolden said. "I congratulate Elon Musk and the SpaceX team
again for this historic milestone." Dragon launched May 22 on a
demonstration mission to see if the spacecraft and SpaceX's
Falcon 9 rocket are ready to begin a series of contracted supply
runs to the orbiting lab for NASA. Dragon docked with the
station on May 25 and capped its successful flight with a
splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off