While NASA and SpaceX are touting these big milestones, there’s another key advance getting less lip service: Astronauts are finally flying in style after a 40-year gap in tech.
Over the last 39 years, almost all trips to space have been made on just two types of spacecraft: The workhorse Soviet/Russian Soyuz system and NASA’s Space Shuttle (the exception is the Chinese space program, which has conducted six crewed launches of its Shenzhou spacecraft since 2003).