A new era of space travel is about to begin. SpaceX’s Dragon
capsule is set to make a historic flight just before dawn on May
19. Dragon is expected to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida,
to rendezvous and possibly dock with the International Space
Station. The brain-child of PayPal founder Elon Musk, SpaceX has
mounted several successful space flights into low Earth orbit
with its Falcon 9 rocket, including the maiden voyage of the
Dragon capsule in 2010. SpaceX seeks to eventually provide
manned access to space as well. The launch was set for May 7th
but it was pushed back so the engineers could reassess the
flight software. That places the launch of a Soyuz with the
second half of Expedition 31 in line for the next launch to the
International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in Kazakhstan on May 15. This will once again bring the crew
compliment of the ISS up to its standard six. The ISS has been
continuously occupied since November 2001 and has provided an
on-site orbiting laboratory for