ELON MUSK’S SpaceX firm has tweeted footage of the first Earth views from its civilian flight.
The space company made history last night when it successfully launched the first all civilian space flight.
The Inspiration4 mission astronauts are inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
It has been modified to provide great views of Earth.
SpaceX recently tweeted a video of one of those views, which shows Earth and the transparent dome viewing spot on the capsule.
The firm wrote: “View from Dragon’s cupola”.
The accompanying video shows Earth looking like a pearly marble.
The Inspiration4 group will have a more dramatic view of Earth than if they were on the International Space Station.
This is because their capsule is floating higher in orbit.
At an altitude of 358 miles (575 km), the Crew Dragon capsule is around 100 miles higher than the ISS.
In comparison, Jeff Bezos’s recent Blue Origin flight took him to an altitude of around 66 miles.
SpaceX engineers modified the capsule for the civilian flight by putting a glass viewing dome where the docking mechanism usually is.
The Inspiration4 astronauts won’t be docking with the ISS so that part wasn’t necessary.
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In other news, Elon Musk says SpaceX can put astronauts back on the Moon by 2024.
Musk is working on a Tesla robot that looks like a human – and will perform “boring or dangerous tasks”.
And, Nasa’s Mars helicopter has been whizzing across the red planet.
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
