The first manned commercial space flight was in late May. Then SpaceX brought American astronauts Douglas Hurley and Bob Behnken to the ISS. They returned to earth at the beginning of August. That was also the first manned US space flight since 2011.
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The crew of the second flight are Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker from the United States and the Japanese Soichi Noguchi. The mission is called Crew-1 because this second flight counts as the first official flight of the SpaceX program.
Hurley and Behnken’s space voyage was formally a demonstration flight intended to test all systems. The next SpaceX flight is next spring. Then two Americans, a Japanese and a French, will go to the ISS.
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Depends on Russians
The United States flew its own space shuttles to space for years, but they were retired in 2011. After that, the country depended on arch-rival Russia. That hurts in Washington.
That is why the Americans worked for years on new rockets, in collaboration with companies such as SpaceX and Boeing. In a few years, the United States, together with Europe, wants to put people on the moon. That would be the first time since 1972.
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