Space flight: There be Dragons At 3.44am on May 22nd the Dragon spacecraft breathed fire at last, blasting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida atop a Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX, its maker, meanwhile, breathed a sigh of relief, along with NASA, America's space agency, whose cargo the capsule is ferrying to astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). The successful launch follows months of delays caused by technical glitches, including an attempt on May 19th that was aborted with only half a second to go on the countdown clock, after excessive pressure built up in one of the Falcon's nine engines. If all goes to plan, on May 25th the Dragon, which settled into orbit 12 minutes after ignition, will have become the first private craft to dock with the ISS, ushering in a new era of space trucking.