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SpaceX invited a few reporters into its Hawthorne, California, headquarters on Monday for a close-up look at a new spaceship and spacesuit for NASA astronauts.
The aerospace company, founded by tech mogul Elon Musk, built its Crew Dragon hardware as part of the agency's Commercial Crew Program. Boeing also designed a new space capsule for NASA called the CST-100 Starliner.
NASA launched program in 2010 to replace its (now retired) space-shuttle fleet with privately developed American spacecraft — and stop paying Russia more and more money to fly astronauts to the International Space Station.
Crewed test launches of each spaceship are set to begin in 2019. But SpaceX is poised to send the commercial astronauts into space first, given that Boeing must fix leaky fuel valves on the CST-100 Starliner.
Some who climbed aboard SpaceX's mockups shared photos and videos of the event on Twitter and Instagram.
Here's a sample of some of the best footage and pictures, and what reporters said it was like inside:
For Monday's media event, SpaceX took a full-size mockup of the Crew Dragon capsule and rolled it outside its headquarters in greater Los Angeles.
NasaSpaceFlight.com photographer Jack Beyer said he was excited to climb aboard the ship. Beyer told Business Insider he used Snapchat Spectacles to record this ultrawide-angle video, which shows what is like to crawl inside the cabin.
Beyer also shared this clip of him twisting knobs and punching buttons on the mock control panel. "Plenty of room for four in here," he said, though the capsule can be configured to seat up to seven people.
Attendees got to step inside a simulator that astronauts are using to train for two test flights. If both missions go well, NASA says it will certify SpaceX's new ship for routine flight.
Here's a close-up of the Crew Dragon simulator's seats. They're reclined to help astronauts' bodies withstand the punishing forces of launch and landing.
The simulator is equipped with working controls and gear that astronauts need to train for routine flight and emergencies. It even has a toilet and privacy curtain, says Stephen Clark of Spaceflight Now.
This photo, by Mat Kaplan of the Planetary Society, shows a forward hatch on top of Crew Dragon. The hardware will serve as a circular doorway into the space station after SpaceX's ship docks there.
Its construction is also innovative. David Rosenfeld of The Beach Reporter said the spacesuit "is made from Nomex, a fire retardant fabric similar to Kevlar, a bleached variant of Teflon and leather."
Journalists not only got to meet the two astronaut crews at SpaceX, but they also got to look at the actual spaceship hardware being built to fly them into orbit.
SpaceX's first of two crewed test flights of the spaceship is set for February. The ship will ride into orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket with veterans Robert Behnken and Doug "Chunky" Hurley.
NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. The spaceflight veterans will be the first to fly SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.
NASA; David J. Phillip/AP
