Wall Street Journal: Launch Signals New Space Race

By ANDY PASZTOR

The world's first commercially developed space capsule was successfully launched into orbit and then recovered at sea Wednesday, signaling a historic move toward an era of privately operated rockets and spacecraft.

The first private SpaceX capsule was launched on a test flight from Florida's Cape Canaveral.

Barely eight years after Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk opened makeshift offices in suburban Los Angeles, his company accomplished something that none of the world's aerospace giants—and so far only five national space progams—have been able to achieve.

Closely held Space Exploration Technologies Corp. recovered its unmanned Dragon capsule after more than three hours of a seemingly problem-free demonstration flight, despite immense technical hurdles that many space experts and established contractors believed would take much longer to overcome. Read more...