NASA’s First SpaceX Astronauts Ready for ‘Messy Camping Trip’ to Space

The first U.S. astronauts chosen to fly aboard a SpaceX capsule built for NASA shrugged off a spate of design and tests.

NASA commercial crew astronauts Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins, Douglas Hurley and Bob Behnken pose for a portrait at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on May 21, 2019. Mike Blake/Reuters

HOUSTON—The first U.S. astronauts chosen to fly aboard a SpaceX capsule built for NASA shrugged off a spate of design and test mishaps, saying such setbacks were “part of the process” and the new technology was far more advanced than the space shuttle program that ended eight years ago.

Space shuttle veterans Bob Behnken, 48, and Doug Hurley, 52 are slated for blastoff later this year from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the debut manned flight of the Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station and back.