Judy L. Hasday - Elon Musk: CEO of Tesla, Inc.

NASAs SpaceX Demo-2 mission will return U.S human spaceflight to the International Space Station from U.S. soil with astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley. In March 2020, at a SpaceX processing facility on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, SpaceX successfully completed a fully integrated test of critical crew flight hardware ahead of Crew Dragons second demonstration mission to the International Space Station for NASA's Commercial Crew Program; the first flight test with astronauts onboard the spacecraft.

Source: NASA

Elon's visionary journey from Blastar, his crude arcade game creation at age twelve, to PayPal, Tesla, and Solar City, his farsighted thinking has provided some crazy ideas to successful realities. One such idea has begun to move from conception-type start to the potential end resultcolonization of planets in our universe beyond Earth. Considering Elon's lack of expertise in either electric car technology and space rocketry, he's silenced the critics and non-believers.

Fueled by fears as a child of being alone along with the worry about human extinction, Elon always intended to find a way to prevent those things from happening. So, with no prior aeronautical and space technology experience, in 2002 Elon founded the company SpaceX. The goal was to revolutionize space transportation. It was created to design, manufacture, and launch the world's most advanced rockets and spacecraft, with the end goal of reaching Mars and building sustaining colonies on that planet and beyond. America's space program, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was founded in 1958, with the goal of putting an American in space, landing on the Moon and furthering space exploration.

The first successful orbital space flight was achieved on February 20, 1962 by astronaut John Glenn. Then began the race to put a man on the moon, which was achieved within the decade. There were several trips to the moon in the years that followed. A space vehicle was developed that could land like a plane, instead of splashing down in the waters around the world. An international space station was built above the earth for astronauts to study and conduct experiments while living in space. On a return from the International Space Station on July 21, 2011, the Space Shuttle Atlantis, Mission STS-135 dropped out of the early morning darkness and landed in Houston, Texas. It also brought to an end the National Aeronautics and Space Administration agency's government-funded space program. It was not however, the end of American flights into space.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASAs SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley onboard, Saturday, May 30, 2020, at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Source: NASA

Elon had long had a vision of achieving sustainable colonies on Mars. In pursuit of the dream to revolutionize space transportation, Elon founded a company he called SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corp) in 2002. It was created to design, manufacture, and launch the world's most advanced rockets and spacecraft. On SpaceX.com, Elon explains the reason behind his passion:

You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be greatand that's what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It's about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can't think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.

Through a lot of collaboration with scientists, engineers, NASA, and former astronauts, Elon's goal was to produce and manufacture reusable rockets, thereby reducing costs and the wasting of materials for space missions. On Saturday, May 30, after a weather-related delay, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ascended at 3:22p.m. from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, on Merritt Island, Florida. Aboard the Falcon 9 rocket were the two Crew Dragon NASA astronauts, Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley. Known as the SpaceX Demo-2 mission, their destination was the International Space Station (ISS) to rendezvous with Expedition 63 NASA astronaut ISS Commander Chris Cassidy, and Russian Flight Engineers Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. The SpaceX Demo-2 mission was historic for two reasons: it was the first time NASA, SpaceX launched astronauts on an American rocket from United States soil since 2011 and it was the first commercially produced and funded crewed space flight.

SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk, left, NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Doug Hurley, Bob Behnken, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, and NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins are seen inside the crew access arm with the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft visible behind them during a tour of Launch Complex 39A before the early Sunday morning launch of the Demo-1 mission, Friday, March 1, 2019 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.