“Anyone who saw it realized what a beautiful launch it was,” Lueders told reporters.
Both SpaceX and NASA officials stressed they’re taking it one step at a time to ensure safety.
Minutes later, their recycled booster had landed on an ocean platform and their capsule was safely orbiting Earth.
The SpaceX capsules are fully automated — which opens the space gates to a broader clientele — and they’re designed to accommodate a wider range of body sizes.
Also cheering Watkins on was another geologist: Apollo 17′s Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon in 1972.
“Those of us who rode the Saturn V into space are a little bit jaded about the smaller rockets,” Schmitt said after the SpaceX liftoff.
Like Watkins, NASA astronaut and test pilot Bob Hines is making his first spaceflight.
The space agency said the three people who paid $55 million each to visit the space station blended in while doing experiments and educational outreach.
NASA also hired Boeing to ferry astronauts after retiring the shuttles.