Originally Posted by
ORAC
Valentina Tereshkova? Commissioned in the Soviet military upon selection for their military space programme.
And de-commissioned the moment she bailed out of her capsule. But at least hers was a historic mission.
Originally Posted by
ORAC
Bezos and Branson? Both sub-orbital.
What does it matter? Space is space. At least this is what they told us when they performed their "historic" missions some weeks ago.
Originally Posted by
ORAC
First pure civilian crew in a privately developed capsule aboard a privately developed rocket.
Maybe. But many spacecraft, including the Apollo capsules where developed and built by private (i.e. not state owned) companies. Under contracts similar to the one SpaceX developed their dragon capsule.
Originally Posted by
ORAC
SpaceX paid their own way.
This may be splitting hairs, but in case of the Crew Dragon SpaceX only built a non-functional mockup on their own. Based on that they were awarded a NASA contract (with on NASA/taxpayer money) for developing and launching the actual thing.
Spaceflight has a long history of "historic" mission. In my history book this is not going to be one of them. Nobody will remember it five years from now unless it ends in tears. Which of course we do not hope for.