Elon Musk's SpaceX is the conductor and NASA, the customer, as businesses begin chauffeuring astronauts to the International Space Station.
The curtain rises next Wednesday with the scheduled lift-off of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule with two NASA astronauts, a test flight years in the making.
It will be just the fifth time NASA astronauts strap into a spanking new US space system for lift-off — following Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and shuttle.
The SpaceX duo will lay claim to a small US flag that flew on NASA's first and last shuttle flights, and was left on the station by Ferguson and Hurley for the first commercial crew to arrive.
Wayne Hale, a retired space shuttle flight director and programme manager who serves on the NASA Advisory Council, views SpaceX's upcoming astronaut flight as an experiment with lessons carrying over to Artemis, NASA's new-generation, moon-landing effort.
