SpaceX founder Elon Musk was choked up with emotion after his company successfully launched astronauts to space for the first time on Saturday (May 30).

"I'm really quite overcome with emotion on this day, so it's kind of hard to talk, frankly," Musk said in a post-launch press conference at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida Saturday evening. "It's been 18 years working towards this goal, so it's hard to believe that it's happened."

Musk's comments came a few hours after SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the center's historic Launch Complex 39A, carrying a Crew Dragon spacecraft with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on board.

By successfully launching its new Crew Dragon spacecraft with astronauts on board for the first time, SpaceX became the first private company to launch astronauts for NASA. The test flight, called Demo-2, is also the first crewed launch to orbit from the United States since the space shuttle program ended in 2011. SpaceX and Boeing were both selected for NASA's commercial crew program to wean the agency off its dependence on Russia's Soyuz to fly astronauts after the shuttle program was retired.

www.space.com

Watched this on twitch. Still find it crazy they can re-land the booster rockets.

Commercial space flights for tourism should start in the very near future.

Jun 2, 2020 0:35:34 GMT c said:

Watched this on twitch. Still find it crazy they can re-land the booster rockets.

Commercial space flights for tourism should start in the very near future.

At the rate earth is going, sign me up to get me off this rock asap.

Musk is taking the social distancing concept to ridiculous extremes.

Jun 2, 2020 0:35:34 GMT c said:

Watched this on twitch. Still find it crazy they can re-land the booster rockets.

Commercial space flights for tourism should start in the very near future.

It’s even crazier that they land it on a moving barge in the ocean. Fucking insanity.

As long as Musk doesn’t go full MAGA I’m going to keep supporting SpaceX. They’re doing some fine work.

It was fun watching the launch after having place Kerbal space program and knowing what the tech shit meant. But yeah the calculations are crazy to land the rockets back.

Even if Musk goes all MAGA, he is just the funder. The scientists that did the work to get this all working do not likely share his views. That said, democrats widely consider space exploration a waste of money so would not be shocked if most of the senior staff did still back people like Trump.