SpaceX To Launch Humans In Space By 2017

There are a lot of private companies trying to turn space travel and exploration into a profitable commercial business. These companies are making big strides, but it seems that Space X is getting ahead.

According to Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spaceflight development said that in just a little over a year, we may see the first test crewed flight. He shared, "This is new, and not a lot of people have had a lot of experience on this," he said at the Advisory Council Human Exploration and Operations Committee Meeting.

NASA is working with SpaceX, which aims to use its Dragon Capsule as a mode for human travel. Boeing, another company that NASA is partnering with, has the same goal for its CST-100 StarLiner. According to Inverse, both companies already have strict schedules of milestones that they need to follow in order to launch astronauts onboard the vehicles and have them dock with the International Space Station.

In separate reports, Space News also reported that NASA will gain access to the data that SpaceX will collect during a landing attempt, as they would be using a new technique called supersonic retropropulsion, which the agency said will allow landing of larger spacecraft on the surface of Mars.

However, people remain skeptical about Elon Musk's proclamations - his goal of flying people to thr red planet by 2024 is more ambitious than any other nation or company has established. Musk didn't give away too many details, though, saying that more plans will be revealed in September. However, he did tell Mashable that if things do go according to plan, then the ambition could be viable.

Still, it remains unclear whether or not he actually plans on landing people there or just orbit the planet, but either way, the goal is definitely one of the more ambitious ones.