Off the coast of California today, the SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule plunged into the Pacific Ocean following its decent from the International Space Station and ending the first commercial journey to the ISS.
The mission was designed to not only deliver fresh supplies to astronaut crews on the space station, which has facilitated continuous human presence in space for 12 years, but to demonstrate that commercial cargo transport to space is possible. The success of the mission will catalyze future discussion leading toward the inevitable attempt by a commercial space company to send a human space flight into low earth orbit or dock with the ISS. The Dragon capsule itself can serve as a human transport vehicle though the use of the capsule for human space flight has yet to be attempted.