"We want to have commercial space stations.We want to direct our energy and our resources to do that because we're going back to the Moon, and we're going to Mars," Nelson added. "We want to get NASA out of low-Earth orbit and go explore the heavens.What they're saying: "We're taking commercial business off the face of the Earth and putting it up in space," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said during an interview with Axiom Space before the launch. The first was Ilan Ramon, who perished along with six other crew members during STS-107 in 2003 when the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded on reentry. Stibbe, a former Israeli aircraft pilot, is now the second Israeli citizen to go to space.After docking with the ISS early Saturday morning, the four crew members are scheduled to spend about eight days on the space station, where they plan to participate in research projects.The crew: Former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría is the commander, Larry Connor is the pilot, and Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe are mission specialists. This mission represents a major leap in NASA's bid to create an economy in low-Earth orbit supported by private companies, and it's Axiom's first crewed space mission.
Why it matters: The 10-day mission, called Ax-1, was organized by Houston-based company Axiom Space, which hopes to one day build the world's first commercial space station. The latest: The crew finished the first leg of its journey and docked at the ISS Saturday morning after a 21-hour trip in the Dragon capsule. NASA and SpaceX launched the first mission with an all-private crew to the International Space Station on Friday, sending a former NASA astronaut and three paying customers aboard a Crew Dragon capsule lifted by a Falcon 9 rocket.
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