SpaceX launch is first step in NASA handoff

For the last half-century, spaceflight has been the domain of the world’s superpowers.

All that is set to change as soon as Saturday when SpaceX, the private rocket company in Hawthorne, Calif., will attempt to launch a spaceship with cargo into orbit and three days later dock it with the International Space Station.

If successful, the mission could mean a major shift in the way the U.S. government handles space exploration. Instead of keeping space travel a closely guarded government function, NASA has already begun hiring privately funded startup companies for spacecraft development and is moving toward eventually outsourcing NASA space missions.

The upcoming launch is “the first step in the handoff” to private industry, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “Everybody realizes the importance of this mission,” he said. “Nobody will be rooting against SpaceX.”

But if the mission fails, it could trigger serious doubts about NASA’s decision to hand these responsibilities to a fledgling private space industry. Doubters have already begun to raise questions. Some former astronauts, members of Congress and space experts say the current plan to subcontract space missions is foolhardy. They say the plan is risky and that outer space is no place to roll the dice on unproven companies.

On launch day, it falls to SpaceX and its 40-year-old billionaire founder, Elon Musk, to prove they’re prepared.

With SpaceX engineers at the controls in Hawthorne, a towering rocket will blast off from a launch pad about 2,600 miles away in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and lift a gumdrop-shaped space capsule with a half-ton of food, water and other supplies up to the crew aboard the orbiting space station.

But delivering cargo isn’t the key mission – the space station is well-provisioned. The main purpose is to demonstrate that the space capsule can rendezvous with the $100 billion orbiting outpost and link up with the space station’s onboard computers. If all goes well, the crew aboard the space station will snag the spacecraft with a robotic arm and lead it in for docking. Weeks later it will be released and sent back to Earth.

“We’re ready to take that next step,” Musk said. “It’s been a long road to this point.”

Musk is a straight-talking modern-day industrialist cut in the mold of a young Howard Hughes. He’s led numerous startup companies in a wide range of industries.

The sandy-haired South African emigrant first made millions when he co-founded and sold online payment business PayPal Inc. to eBay Inc. in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Armed with his personal fortune and a Rolodex full of Silicon Valley venture capitalist contacts, Musk started SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp., and co-founded electric car company Tesla Motors Inc. in Palo Alto.

In starting SpaceX in 2002, his goal was to make money by developing and launching rockets that could carry satellites into space at a fraction of the cost of the current generation of spacecraft.

The sales pitch as a low-cost alternative has resonated with NASA. With federal money in short supply and the space shuttle fleet retired, the space agency has experienced thousands of job cuts across the country at places such as the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge, Calif.

The U.S. government now has no way to space other than doling out $63 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz rocket.

After years of study and approval from Congress, the space agency is moving to turn the job of carrying cargo and crews over to private industry at a lower cost. Meanwhile, NASA will focus on deep space missions to land on asteroids and Mars.