SpaceX lets people crawl inside new Crew Dragon spaceship for NASA

The spacesuit and Crew Dragon spaceship that SpaceX will use to launch NASA astronauts into space.SpaceX

SpaceX allowed a few reporters into its Hawthorne, California headquarters on Monday for close-up looks at a new spaceship and spacesuit for NASA astronauts.

The aerospace company, founded by tech mogul Elon Musk, built its Crew Dragon hardware as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Boeing also designed a new seven-person space capsule for NASA called the CST-100 Starliner.

NASA launched program in 2010 to replace its space shuttle fleet with privately developed American spacecraft — and stop paying Russia increasing prices to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Crewed test launches of each spaceship are slated for 2019. However, SpaceX is poised to send the first commercial astronauts into space (in February), given that Boeing must fix leaky fuel valves on the CST-100 Starliner.

Some who climbed aboard SpaceX’s mockups shared photos and videos of the event on Twitter and Instagram.

Here’s a sample of some of the best footage and pictures, and what journalists said it was like inside: