Sept. 23, 2008 -- A glitch-free launch of a new privately developed rocket could provide the United States a technical and political alternative to extending flights of the risky and expensive space shuttle or paying billions to the Russians for rides to orbit.
Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, could launch its fourth rocket as early this week. The Falcon 1 booster would take off from the U.S. Army's Reagan Test Site in the central Pacific Ocean. Three previous Falcon rockets failed to reach orbit.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who earned his fortune developing Internet financial services including PayPal and other ventures, is looking forward to silencing the naysayers and offering a solution to a problem that threatens to cut off U.S. access to the International Space Station just as the $100 billion complex is finally completed.
President George W. Bush has called for the shuttle's retirement in 2010 although its replacement, a family of vehicles known as Ares-Orion, won't be ready to fly until 2015 at the earliest. Complicating the issue is a Congressional trade ban, intended to address weapons proliferation issues, that prohibits NASA from flying astronauts on Russian Soyuz rockets. Without an exemption, NASA would be forced to abandon the station.
"We've made this gigantic investment in the space station and just when it's done we won't be able to use it," Musk told Discovery News. "And while the nominal schedule for Ares-Orion being complete is in the 2015 timeframe, if anything goes wrong along that path, if there's a launch anomaly ... or even if there is just some glitch in the development process, we could be talking about 2017, 2018 before Ares-Orion is ready to take people to station."
A proposal to continue flying the shuttle beyond 2010 would be expensive and risky, according to NASA administrator Michael Griffin and other experts. The board that investigated the 2003 Columbia disaster, for example, advised retiring the shuttle upon completion of the space station or conducting a complete engineering re-certification to assure the aging ships are still suited for use.
Prolonging the shuttle also could eat up funds needed to develop its replacement, which in addition to flying to the space station is being designed to return U.S. astronauts to the moon.
Musk says there is an alternative. His Falcon 1 rocket is a testbed for a larger Falcon 9 vehicle, which is being developed with assistance from NASA to carry cargo to and from the station. A final part of the NASA contract would upgrade the system with a capsule, known as Dragon, to carry people as well.
"There is really very little difference in the vehicle we're making to service cargo transport and adding crew capability," Musk said. "We've designed Falcon 9 and Dragon from the beginning for a man-rated system."
He explained that Falcon 9's specifications are already designed for carrying biological cargo, such as plants and mice, to space. That means the cargo area maintains a comfortable temperature, oxygen concentration and is leak-proof.
"Really the only significant development element that's missing ... is the escape tower (to be used in case of a launch pad emergency). Our vehicle even has windows. Obviously you don't need windows for cargo," Musk said.
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."
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