'Incredible' rocket control console progression leaves even Elon Musk highly impressed

Two NASA astronauts last Sunday entered International Station (ISS) from X's Dragon craft after a historic launch from Kennedy Center in Florida, marking dawn of a new in commercial travel.  National Aeronautics and ministration (NASA), which is  ncy for research, aeronautics and related programmes in US and pre-eminent such ncy of its kind, alongside ESA, JAXA, China's ncy and India's ISRO, confirmed arrival of astronauts Bob Behnken (49) and Doug Hurley (53) at ISS.

A ship with only touch screen controls

One of most fascinating aspects was that both  astronauts became  first astronauts launched to on a privately-owned rocket and y also became first to pilot a ship using only touchscreen controls. X’s Crew Dragon refrained from using  infamous maze of manual controls and switches found on retired craft like Shuttle or Apollo command modules.

Inste, Crew Dragon pilots h just three large touchscreen panels in front of m and a few spare buttons below. A Twitter user named 'Weird History' shared an im of showing difference between controller of Apollo 4 (1967), Shuttle (2002) and Crew Dragon (2020). X owner Elon Musk also liked tweet which has garnered over 10,000 likes at time of publishing this article.

People responding to tweet praised Elon Musk for bringing such change through his "game-changing vision"

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Top US leership including President Donald Trump, First Ly Melania Trump, and thousands of curious Americans h gared to watch launch live on a bright Sunday afteron. Congratulating Musk, NASA and astronauts, Trump described launch day as a great day for country.

President said he spoke with Musk, whom he called one of "great brains."

'This is first time in human history...'

With liftoff, X became first private company to launch people into orbit, a feat achieved previously by only three governments: US, Russia and China. This was X's second flight test of its Crew Dragon and its first test with astronauts aboard. This will pave way for its certification for regular crew flights to station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Programme.

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(With PTI inputs)