The home-grown U.S. vehicle could be ready to fly two and a half to three years after the development contract with NASA is in place, Musk said. The first demonstration flights of Falcon 9 are scheduled for next year, with a docking at the space station expected in 2010. "We're testing out so much hardware well in advance of putting people aboard, so as far as crew safety is concerned we've got all this flight history to go on. And of course there's all the early teething pains of getting the basics right, which we've done with Falcon 1." With a successful Falcon 1 mission, Musk plans to start lobbying for a follow-on contract to develop the Falcon 9-Dragon to transport space station crews. "We haven't pushed hard yet, even though I think it's like blindingly obvious as the thing to do because we're hoping to get to orbit and then on the back of getting to orbit and push hard ... because otherwise our detractors have too much ammunition," Musk said. "They'd say, 'How can you trust the future of the American space program to a company that hasn't gotten to orbit?' That's the obvious attack. So we hope to get to get to orbit and then they can't use that attack." Musk said he's expects fierce opposition from companies who stand to gain financially from the shuttles' continued operations, mainly United Space Alliance, NASA's prime shuttle contractor. NASA's contribution to development of Falcon 9-Dragon would be about $500 million over five years. The shuttle costs about $3 billion to $4 billion per year. NASA expects to spend more than $100 billion to develop its Ares-Orion lunar transport system. "If it's in the general interest of the United States of America, why woudn't we do as much as we can?" said NASA's Ken Davidian, who oversees commercial space development strategy for the agency's new exploration division. "If we can make that work even within a year of 2010 that would be a massive step forward." Related Links: |
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