SpaceX Invites NASA Astronauts To Check Out Dragon Capsule

Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX took some time this week to show NASA astronauts the new Dragon capsule that will fly 12-cargo only missions to the International Space Station.

The tour of the capsule was meant to give NASA astronauts a chance to see if they would feel comfortable flying aboard the ship for hours at a time.

The SpaceX Dragon Capsule is a small sized spacecraft meant to carry astronauts to the International Space Station and into low Earth orbit destinations.

SpaceX scored its cargo-only flight missions as part of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services Contract. In 2010 the company became the first commercially developed spacecraft company to return from Earth orbit during the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Program.

Jon Cowart, NASA’s partner manager for SpaceX told Red Orbit:

“There are very important systems that need to be in place before you can put humans in a spacecraft … You’ve got to have the seats and the displays, of course. But you also have to have air circulation, and air conditioning and heating. So, under CCP’s second round of development we are working on the layout of the Dragon interior and developing concepts and some hardware for the interior’s atmosphere control.”

The Dragon capsule may look like something from NASA’s Apollo-era but the device is much larger, carrying up to seven crew members instead of three while the capsules outer shell is less steep.

Are you impressed with the strides SpaceX has managed to make in a rather short period of time?