Well, it all comes down to this. NASA has given SpaceX the thumbs up to become the first company in its Commercial Crew program to send humans into space. The race between SpaceX and Boeing, which had hoped its Starliner spacecraft would be the first to send humans to space from American soil in roughly a decade, is nearing its end.

The launch, which won't take place for another couple of months, will be the culmination of an incredible amount of work on the part of SpaceX, which has seen its fair share of setbacks along the way.

The mission will see a pair of NASA astronauts — Dough Hurley and Bob Behnken — travel from Earth to the International Space Station. Being able to send US astronauts to the space station without relying on seats aboard Russian rockets has been a major goal for NASA, and it hired both Boeing and SpaceX to come up with crewed spacecraft capable of filling that need.