The winner not only wins bragging rights as the first private company to shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station, but gets to bring home a piece of history: a small American flag that flew on both the first and last shuttle missions. That tiny patch of red, white, and blue is more than a piece of cloth. It represents the hope that astronauts will once again launch from US soil—and bring that flag back home with them.

With each company's spacecraft nearing completion, NASAannounced on Friday who will pilot them. Nine astronauts—seven men and two women—were greeted like rock stars by a crowd of family, NASA employees, government representatives, and journalists as NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine introduced the first crews to fly from US soil on the backs of American rockets since 2011.