U.S. President, Donald Trump, says American astronauts would return to the moon by 2024.
Speaking after the successful launched of the countryโs first human spaceflight in nine years, Trump said the aim was to โestablish a permanent presence in space and a launching pad to Marsโโ.
โThe first woman on the Moon will be an American woman and the first nation to land on Mars will be the United States of America.
โSpace travel is not a feat of engineering alone, itโs also a moral endeavour, a measure of a nationโs vision, its willpower and its place in the world.
โExploration is a test of our values.
โThe best is yet to come,โโ the president told Americans, who had cause to celebrate in what has been a trying period for the country.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft, built by a private American aerospace manufacturing company, SpaceX, blasted off the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 3.22 p.m. (8.22 p.m. on Saturday Nigerian time).
Onboard the capsule are America astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, who are on a 19-hour journey to the International Space Station.
READ ALSO: Europe urges Trump to reconsider decision to withdraw from WHO
This is the countryโs first human spaceflight through a government-private partnership between the U.S. space agency, NASA and SpaceX.
The STS-135 mission of July 8, 2011, was the last time the U.S. launched astronauts from its soil.
Between then and the latest mission, the U.S. astronauts were flown to the International Space Station through the Soyuz Capsule in Russia.
Tagged โLaunch Americaโ, the mission was originally scheduled to begin on Wednesday but had to be postponed just 17 minutes to launch due to bad weather.
According to vox.com, it is an expensive mission that is supposed to cost $86 million per astronaut.
But SpaceX is reportedly charging only $55 million dollars per astronaut for one complete round trip.
Trump acknowledged this when he said the NASA-SpaceX partnership had given America โan unmatched powerโ in a spaceship that puts astronauts into orbit โat a fraction of the cost of the space shuttleโโ.
Newsmen report that by this development, space exploration is no longer limited to the government.
NASAโs administrator, Mr Jim Bridenstine, told newsmen prior to the launch that space exploration would neither be successful nor sustainable if โgovernment is the only one doing things in spaceโโ.
READ ALSO:ย G7 summit: Merkel rejects Trumpโs invitation in Washington
This is the beginning of โtaxiโ rides to the space station, where commercial spaceflight enters a new phase, reports the BBC.
Trump congratulated the Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX, Mr Elon Musk, for fulfilling a dream he had nursed for decades.
โFrom now on the U.S. will leverage the fast-growing capabilities of our commercial sector.
โWe will use rockets and spacecraft designed, built, owned and launched by private American companies at a fixed price for the American taxpayer.
โTodayโs launch makes clear the commercial space industry is the future, the president said.
According to reports, Crew Dragon is on a test mission intended to complete the validation of SpaceXโ hardware for human-rated spaceflight operations.
The success of this mission will earn the company NASA certification for commercial crew missions to and from the International Space Station.
During the mission, expected to last between 30 and 90 days, the astronauts will test the capabilities of Crew Dragon, including its ability to dock and undock from the space station among others.
NAN
