SpaceX's Dragon crew capsule outshines NASA's old Apollo spacecraft in virtually every way. SpaceX's historic Demo-2 Crew Dragon astronaut launch: Full coverage. SpaceX’s Dragon crew capsule outshines NASA’s old Apollo spacecraft in virtually every way. In 2014, NASA picked SpaceX as one of two companies (Boeing was the other) to fly astronaut taxi missions to the space station. By Mike Wall SpaceX is about to make history. For this test, SpaceX will configure Crew Dragon to intentionally trigger a launch escape prior to 1 min, 30 seconds into flight to demonstrate Crew Dragon’s capability to safely separate from the Falcon 9 rocket in the unlikely event of an in-flight emergency. SpaceX’s Dragon crew capsule outshines NASA’s old Apollo spacecraft in virtually every way.