A recent graduate of American University and published writer for multiple national media outlets, Alec Christopher Schemmel has begun building his research credentials and is exploring numerous graduate degree programs to propel his professional opportunities within both the public and private sectors. Alec Schemmel has published articles about politics, foreign affairs, mental health and other breaking news topics, including one for The Daily Caller, which covered the landmark achievement of Elon Musk’s SpaceX becoming the first private company in American history to send humans to space.
Flown by veteran NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley the Crew Dragon space capsule, headed for the International Space Station (ISS), took off from Kennedy Space Center on May 30, 2020. Behnken and Hurley navigated safely to the ISS where they spent 63 days on station assisting fellow NASA astronaut, Christopher Cassidy, with research experiments and station maintenance, which included four spacewalks to complete the installation of new batteries on the ISS. The mission was only supposed to last approximately two weeks, but due to repeated delays NASA ended up short-handed aboard the space station, leading to a much longer and busier stay for the Crew Dragon astronauts. Cassidy remained on board the ISS, along with two other Russian astronauts, who all plan to stay through October until another crew of one American and two Russians replace them. Behnken and Hurley departed from the ISS on the evening of August 1, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico on August 2. Upon returning to port SpaceX engineers dismantled the capsule to analyze its performance throughout the flight.
The mission, called Demo-2, was a private-public partnership designed to renew American-manned spaceflight after a near decades long hiatus, taking reliance off of other countries like Russia to send Americans into space. Elon Musk’s SpaceX beat out Boeing in this endeavor, which sparked some unrest among executives from the world’s largest aerospace company. The successful mission is part of a process to certify that the spacecraft meets NASA's needs and safety standards in order to begin routine trips taking astronauts to and from the space station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The next Crew Dragon spaceflight will take three NASA astronauts and one Japanese astronaut, with an expected launch date no earlier than late September. A following trip is tentatively scheduled for February 2021, carrying two other NASA astronauts, another Japanese astronaut and one from the European Space Agency.
