SpaceX and the Dragon Spacecraft

With the retirement of the Space Shuttle this past summer the United States entered a new era, one in which U.S. astronauts will be flying only aboard the Russian Soyuz vehicle in order to access Low Earth Orbit and the International Space Station. California headquartered Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has developed and twice launched a brand new launch vehicle (Falcon9), as well as launched and recovered a space capsule designed for humans (Dragon). SpaceX will soon begin delivering cargo, and ultimately plans on launching crew, to the International Space Station from U.S. soil. And all that is just the beginning of what SpaceX has in mind to revolutionize human access into Space.