????上周二早上,，天尚未破曉，一枚獵鷹9號火箭從卡納維拉爾角沖天而起,。它搭載著一艘名叫“龍”的宇宙飛船,。起飛、船箭飛離和進(jìn)入軌道都按部就班地進(jìn)行著,。對美國國家航天局（NASA）部署在卡納維拉爾角空軍基地的支持人員來說,，這天早上并沒有出現(xiàn)什么異常。不過讓我們把視線拉遠(yuǎn)一點(diǎn)：此次發(fā)射的獵鷹9號火箭以及宇宙飛船“龍”都是一家美國私人公司的產(chǎn)品,。這家名叫“太空探索技術(shù)公司”（SpaceX）的公司已經(jīng)不是第一次穿越大氣層了,，不過這次的任務(wù)比以往更加重要，也更加雄心勃勃,。這次發(fā)射其實主要是給NASA看的,，如果“龍”能成功完成繞地飛行、操控性展示,、導(dǎo)航系統(tǒng)展示以及與國際空間站對接,、卸載非必需供給品等任務(wù)，然后成功返回地球（兩周后“龍”將墜落在南加州外海數(shù)百英里處）,，那它將成為NASA最主要的近地軌道空地物流系統(tǒng),。也就是說，私人航天業(yè)將迎來真正的開始,。

????太空探索技術(shù)公司的共同創(chuàng)始人伊隆?馬斯科（同時也是特斯拉汽車公司的幕后老板）把“龍”的發(fā)射比作贏得了“超級碗”杯,。這個比喻還是很恰當(dāng)?shù)模驗樗鼧?biāo)志著太空探索技術(shù)公司1800多名員工的努力終于獲得了不朽的成功,。然后馬斯科更加生動地說道：“這就像90代年中期互聯(lián)網(wǎng)誕生時一樣,。互聯(lián)網(wǎng)一開始是一個政府項目,，后來商業(yè)公司參與進(jìn)來,。這個進(jìn)程大大加快了互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的發(fā)展速度，并使它成了大眾市場也能消費(fèi)的東西,。我認(rèn)為現(xiàn)在我們也處在一個類似的拐點(diǎn)上……”從某種意義上看,，這番話也是對的。NASA知道這一天遲早要來,，因此全心全意地歡迎這一天,。這次發(fā)射也代表了NASA朝著自己的“商業(yè)軌道運(yùn)輸服務(wù)計劃”邁進(jìn)了一大步,。這個計劃的目的是要用商用航天器取代由政府資助的近地軌道運(yùn)輸工具（如航天飛機(jī)），以便于NASA集中精力探索更深遠(yuǎn)的宇宙空間（如火星）,。不過暫且別樂觀的太早,。互聯(lián)網(wǎng)作為一個平臺,，早在它進(jìn)入公共領(lǐng)域,、成為眾所周知的“萬維網(wǎng)”并改變了我們的生活之前，它的基礎(chǔ)架構(gòu)就已經(jīng)存在了——哪怕當(dāng)時實踐中不存在,，它的理論也已經(jīng)存在,。

????但航天器卻沒那么簡單。它是一部極為復(fù)雜的機(jī)器,，涉及的知識浩如煙海,。制造航天器的費(fèi)用極高，需要的技能也極其專門化,?；鸺茖W(xué)家也一直被人們看成“超級學(xué)究派”。市場會不會真的出現(xiàn)以航空飛行作為主營業(yè)務(wù)的創(chuàng)業(yè)公司,？也就是那種在自家車庫創(chuàng)業(yè),，結(jié)果卻改變了貨物的太空運(yùn)輸方式（乃至是我們自己的旅行方式）的公司？事實上,，這種公司已經(jīng)存在了,。

????Tuesday morning, in the pre-dawn darkness off Cape Canaveral, a Falcon 9 rocket took to the sky, carrying with it a spacecraft called Dragon. The liftoff, capsule breakaway, and subsequent Earth orbit were in all ways routine. For the NASA support crew at Air Force Station Canaveral, nothing about the morning was extraordinary. But take a step back: That rocket, the Falcon, and capsule, the Dragon, were built by a private company called SpaceX. It's not the first time SpaceX has pierced the atmosphere, but this mission is more important, and ambitious, than all that came before it. It's an audition for NASA. If the Dragon capsule completes all its requisite tasks -- orbiting Earth, demonstrating its maneuverability and navigation systems, docking with the International Space Station (ISS), unloading its "nonessential" supplies, and returning to Earth (after two weeks it will splash down hundreds of miles off the Southern California coast) -- it will become NASA's primary low-orbit cargo system. Which means, yes, the true beginning of private industry in space.

????The day of the launch, Elon Musk, SpaceX's co-founder (and the man behind Tesla Motors), compared the event to winning the Superbowl, which is fair -- it's the culmination of a monumental effort by the Hawthorne, California company's 1,800 employees. Musk then said something far more telling: "It is like the advent of the Internet in the mid-1990s when commercial companies entered what was originally a government endeavor. That move dramatically accelerated the pace of advancement and made the Internet accessible to the mass market. I think we're at a similar inflection point...". Also true, in a sense. NASA knew this day would come and embraced it wholeheartedly. Indeed, the SpaceX launch also represents a giant leap for NASA's ownCommercial Orbital Transportation Services program, the aim of which is to replace government-funded low Earth orbit transport (eg. the shuttle) to focus on deeper space (eg. Mars). But hang on a second. The Internet is a platform, the infrastructure of which already existed in theory if not in practice before the network of networks moved into the public sector, became the World Wide Web, and changed everything.

????A spacecraft isn't so simple. It's a mind-numbingly complex machine. The overhead is extremely high, the skills ridiculously specialized -- a rocket scientist's cred as uber-nerd is as deservedly true today as it was before the digital age. Will there really be spaceflight startups? The kind that begin in a garage and end up revolutionizing how we transport goods -- and maybe even people -- beyond the atmosphere? Well, yes. In fact, there already are.?