SpaceX is gearing up to be the first private company to put an astronaut in space with the Dragon V2, an updated version of its Dragon spaceship that would make space travel safer and more controlled for its crew. “When we first created Dragon 1, we had never made a spacecraft before,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said at the unveiling Thursday night at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. “We wanted to take a big step in technology; really create something that was a step change in space technology.” The V2 will be capable of carrying seven astronauts and the first manned flight is planned for 2017 or 2018, when it would bring astronauts to the International Space Station. It can dock with the ISS autonomously or piloted. The V2 is similar in design to the Dragon capsule that SpaceX currently uses to ferry supplies from its Falcon 9 rocket to the ISS.