本文选自5月31日文章。北京时间5月31日凌晨3点22分，美国太空探索技术公司（SpaceX）首次利用载人龙飞船把两位宇航员送入地球轨道，这揭开了世界“商业载人航天”巨大帷幕的一角。SpaceX的龙飞船首次载人发射成功具有重大意义，对于SpaceX来说，这次成功意味着拿到了商业载人航天的入场券，未来前景无可限量；而对于整个世界商业航天来讲，这意味着揭开了商业载人航天的帷幕，商业航天走进新时代，太空旅行也许不再是梦。
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SpaceX makes history since it Is first Personal Business sending astronauts into orbitSpaceX创造了历史，它是第一个将宇航员送入轨道的私人企业
Elon Musk’s SpaceX made history on Saturday (May 30) after getting the first private organization to successfully send astronauts to orbit. The launch was significant too because it was NASA’s first human spaceflight leaving US land in almost a decade. Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are anticipated to reach the International Space Station following a 19-hour journey. They’ll then spend one to four weeks, before directing their capsule into a splashdown in the Atlantic. US President Donald Trump attended the liftoff, which was watched by almost 4,000 people in the Kennedy Space Center.
周六(5月30日)，伊隆·马斯克的SpaceX公司创造了历史，成为第一个成功将宇航员送入轨道的私人组织。这次发射意义重大，因为这是美国宇航局近十年来首次在美国本土发射载人航天飞行器。宇航员Doug Hurley和Bob Behnken预计将在19个小时的旅程后抵达国际空间站。然后，在操控他们的太空舱返回大西洋之前，他们将在那里呆一到四周的时间。美国总统唐纳德·特朗普出席了在肯尼迪航天中心举行的近4000人观看的发射仪式。SpaceX and NASA tracked the weather not only at Kennedy Space Center, in which rain, heavy clouds, and the likelihood of lightning threatened another postponement but all of the way up the Eastern Seaboard and across the North Atlantic to Ireland. Ever since the shuttle has been retired from 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships started from Kazakhstan to shoot US astronauts to and from the space station. NASA hired SpaceX and Boeing from 2014 to cab astronauts to and from the space station, under contracts totaled $7 billion. Both firms launched their team capsules annually with test dummies. SpaceX’s Dragon aced all its aims, while Boeing’s Starliner capsule ended up at the wrong orbit and has been nearly ruined due to software errors. Because of this, the very first Starliner flight taking astronauts is not expected until next year.
SpaceX和NASA不仅跟踪了肯尼迪航天中心的天气，那里有降雨、乌云和闪电，这些可能再次推迟发射，他们还将天气追踪一路扩大到东部沿海地区，穿越北大西洋到爱尔兰地区。自2011年航天飞船退役以来，NASA一直依赖于从哈萨克斯坦出发的俄罗斯宇宙飞船，运送往返空间站的美国宇航员。NASA从2014年开始雇佣SpaceX和波音公司运送宇航员往返空间站，合同总额为70亿美元。两家公司每年都推出带有测试假人的团队太空舱。SpaceX的“龙”飞船完成了所有目标，而波音的“星际客机”号返回舱最终进入了错误的轨道，几乎因软件故障而报废。正因为如此，首次搭载宇航员的“星际客机”飞行预计要到明年才会实现。
