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Local teacher hopes space launch can inspire students
Maybe you can remember where you were when the Apollo 11 mission blasted off in the summer of 1969, or when the first Space Shuttle cleared the tower at Cape Canaveral twelve years later? And perhaps those iconic moments of human achievement inspired you to join the countless other young people who then embraced the sciences.
Now, more than fifty years since man went to the moon, and over nine years since the retirement of the Shuttle program, there may well be another jolt of inspiration among a new generation of school kids.
On Saturday, for the first time in history, NASA astronauts launched from American soil in a commercially built and operated crew spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley – dressed in their cool-looking spacesuits – was hurtled into orbit by the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. NASA described it as a new era in human spaceflight and an important step to expand human exploration to the Moon and Mars.