Nicole Junkermann on Space Exploration's New Era: Crewed Flights, the Moon and SpaceX's Starship
Byline: Nicole Junkermann
From routine Crew Dragon flights to Starship's first trip to orbit, SpaceX has changed what space exploration looks like this decade. Nicole Junkermann's writing on space looks at what that progress means for the people who make the journey and for everyone on the ground.
At 11:10 Eastern time on the morning of October 1, 2026, a SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Florida with four astronauts from three space agencies on board. That evening their capsule, Crew Dragon Grace, docked with the International Space Station. Crew-13 was the 21st crewed orbital flight of a Crew Dragon, and for most people it registered as an ordinary Thursday news item. That ordinariness is one of the biggest changes in space exploration this decade. It's also the change at the center of Nicole Junkermann's thinking about space: what happens once reaching orbit stops being rare.
On May 30, 2020,...
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