SpaceX Plans to Put Employee Astronauts Into Orbit By 2015

SpaceX, the private commercial space flight company, is planning to put some of its own employee astronauts into orbit by 2015.

The company recently made headline when it delivered cargo to the International Space Station with its own rockets, and when it successfully tested a reusable rocket that climbed over 100 feet into the air and landed back on the ground.

"This week, SpaceX project manager and former NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman said manned flights conducted by the company could come more quickly than many industry watchers anticipated," writes Damon Poeter for PC Magazine.

"Reisman, speaking at a NASA press event at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, said SpaceX was hoping to send a capsule carrying its own hand-picked astronauts-not the U.S. space agency's-on a three-day demonstration flight in low-Earth orbit."

NASA is encouraging privately-funded and operated flights into space, as well as the manned missions, as a low-cost way to find new partners in space exploration to replace the retired space shuttle program. Boeing also plans a manned mission in 2016.

"SpaceX documents filed with NASA indicate that the company's first manned mission would be an "orbital-demonstration flight" that would stay in space at least three days. It would not dock with the space station," writes Mark Matthews in the Orlando Sentinel, who broke the story.

"When NASA retired the shuttle in 2011, it had no homegrown, human-rated spacecraft to replace it. So the agency has relied on Russia to ferry astronauts to and from the station -- an arrangement costing the U.S. roughly $1.5 billion during five years."

The space agency hopes that American companies will soon be able to fill the void.