SpaceX Makes Strides in for Commercial Space Travel

On today's date just two years ago today, SpaceX, a space transportation company in California, launched for the first time the Falcon 9 rocket. This was (and is) an important occurrence in the timeline of development of commercial space travel...aka regular people getting to travel in space. The Falcon 9 was launched into low-Earth orbit and SpaceX used the launch to get a closer look at the aerodynamic conditions on the spacecraft and learn more about how a carrier rocket would perform.

The spacecraft orbited the Earth more than 300 times before reentering our atmosphere on June 29. Some future projects that SpaceX is working on are the Falcon Heavy launch system and a NASA robotic mission to Mars in 2018.

The Heavy is based on the same technology used in the Falcon 9 and if the construction of this vessel goes as planned, it will be the most powerful rocket in America since the Saturn V of the Apollo era. Falcon Heavy is planned to be able to send a crew-led Dragon spacecraft on lunar orbiting missions. Another plan is that it will be used to send a specially adapted unpiloted Dragon on a Mars landing mission. The founder of SpaceX said he wants his company to help make a way for humans to have a permanent presence on Mars.

Do you think you'd want to go to Mars? If you could visit any planet in our solar system, which one would you choose and why? Maybe in a few years it will be possible!