Dragon Links With Space Station - East Idaho News
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Dragon Links With Space Station

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Getty N 020411 EarthStock?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1338058151294Earth // Comstock/Thinkstock(HOUSTON) — The first privately funded capsule has docked at the International Space Station.

The unmanned capsule brought one thousand pounds of supplies to astronauts, Donald Pettit and Andre Kuipers, who caught the ship with a robotic arm on Friday. When caught, Pettit told mission control in Houston, “”Looks like we’ve got us a dragon by the tail.”

The astronauts plan to spend Memorial Day unloading the cargo from the ship.

Space X Dragon is a spacecraft developed by SpaceX, a company located in Hawthorne, CA. Dragon is primarily designed to carry supplies, not passengers. On their website, SpaceX explains their mission, “SpaceX aims to change this paradigm by developing a family of launch vehicles which will ultimately reduce the cost and increase the reliability of space access by a factor of ten.”

On Saturday, Flight Engineer, Don Pettit, explained the significance of this ship by comparing it to the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, “It was celebrated or commemorated by driving in a golden spike.  And, this is kind of the equivalent of the golden spike.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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