(14. April) Later this month, a company called SpaceX is scheduled to launch its Falcon 9 rocket on a routine supply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). (…)

Defenders of the plan, including President Obama, argue that the shift to bigger more ambitious missions is needed for the agency to regain the kind of pioneer spirit it displayed during the Apollo years in the 1960s and 1970s, when it successfully sent men to the moon.