On April 24, 2021, the second operational SpaceX Crew consisting of four astronauts arrived successfully at the International Space Station by using a reused rocket and a capsule for the mission. This reusable rocket will be used to fly astronauts into space and will land itself, whereas the old rocket models would fall into the ocean, resulting in a waste of money and resources.The astronauts will be spending six months in space doing science experiments and maintaining that the International Space Station is working properly before returning to Earth. While the first crew that was launched back in November of 2020 returned safely landing in the Gulf of Mexico. The journey to Earth took 6 ½ hours landing at 3:00 a.m. ET which made the astronauts the first U.S crew to land at night time.

“This is really fascinating. We are taking a closer step to further our future by sending more people into space and advancing our knowledge on what we can do to send more people into space. We can maybe one day colonize Mars and be able to live on it,” sophomore Hunter Mltchel said.

And colonizing Mars is Elon Musk’s vision for the future of SpaceX, which is building a Starship designed to be used to carry people to the moon and Mars. The current Starship prototype that SpaceX is building is a huge stainless steel rocket about 150 feet tall which is powered by three Raptor rocket engines.

“This is really cool that SpaceX and NASA are working together to better our future. It was a good thing that they were able to control their rockets compared to China, which recently one of theirs got out of control and didn’t know where the rocket was going to land on Earth. But luckily it landed in the Indian Ocean and no one got hurt,” senior Sakura Border said.

Before sending people into space, SpaceX will first launch Starship prototypes which will run hundreds of missions that will simulate human living conditions. Making a fully reusable orbital rocket is going to be challenging because nobody has ever made one before, so making the Starship that Elon Musk really wants will take some time to fully develop and will cost tons of money.