What is the significance of SpaceX launching astronauts into space?

This is a great spectacle of science, technological innovation and private enterprise working in sync to achieve glory for humanity, of which some watched the spectacle unfold on TV from a self-imposed quarantine and others by physically attending the event.

For the first time in Human history, a private company "SpaceX" launched astronauts into orbit. Two American astronauts Robert L. Behnken and Douglas O. Hurley were lifted off at 3.22 PM local time from Florida in Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon 9 carried a crew dragon capsule, which caught up with the International space station on Sunday morning, and glided in for a problem free docking. The crew dragon is gumdrop shaped capsule having space for up to seven people but have put only four seats for NASA's missions. The capsule was named "Endeavour" when it got to orbit on Saturday night.

The crew dragon has caught up with the International space station 19 hours after launch on Sunday, at about 10:30 AM eastern time. Mr Behnken and Mr Hurley will stay at the station from anywhere about a month to four months.

For US this is a very important milestone, this again puts them back in the forefront of space travel which they had ceded to Russia for all these years after the shuttering of space shuttle. They relied on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to carry astronauts to and fro the lab complex. The episode marks their arrival on this big stage again. This also give them a much needed fillip with their soft power and influence while the world order remains volatile on many fronts.

It strengthens the belief that America is the place of opportunity and if a person has the best possibility to achieving anything remarkable it is USA. Elon Musk is a living example of American dream, he is a South African, Canadian immigrant who came to US to live his dream and we can now safely say, "glad he did".

For humanity, this has commodities space travel into a marketplace and has made possible space travel for anybody who can afford it. Specially with more private players working on their own capabilities like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. We can safely say the future of space travel looks certain for public and space exploration as a vacation would be a possibility very soon.

It is a much needed break from the usual chain of bad news which has engulfed the world these days. from Coronavirus pandemic to China-US relations worsening by the day, China-India border issues and the list goes on. This was just the cheerful news humanity needed at this moment to give them hope. 

For entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship as a whole, this event underlines and puts focus back on how important they are for the society to advance and given the right motivation and resources entrepreneurs can make significant positive changes to the society. Not just space travel but in other domains as well like healthcare, climate change, sustainable and smart infrastructure developments etc.

Conclusion:

Humanity has achieved many things over many years and this sits right among some of the most important. We have always thought about what could be in the outer space while starring over our heads in the night sky, wondering if we will ever be able to see for ourselves. The answer has been given by NASA and SpaceX and the answer is a resounding YES. Space is now not far for individuals if they have the resources to buy a ticket and this is no mean feet. Like many other mode of transports we can be sure that with competition and technological advancement this ticket price would only go down in future. So we can all start planning our next vacation in space and start saving for it, for it has never been more real in history.