Launch could be first test of rocket and Obama space plan

From USA Today:

Launch could be first test of rocket and Obama space plan

By Todd Halvorson, Florida Today
SpaceX plans to launch its Falcon 9 rocket on its first test flight next week, a big step in establishing a commercial space line to fly freight and passengers to the International Space Station.
The 180-foot rocket and a test model of the company's Dragon spacecraft are scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on May 11.

For company founder Elon Musk, it's showtime. "We're super excited to be launching from Cape Canaveral," Musk said. "It's like opening on Broadway."

For others, the flight will be a measure of President Obama's plan to kill NASA's moon program, dubbed Project Constellation, and instead invest in developing commercial "space taxis" for astronauts traveling to and from low Earth orbit.

The plan has encountered opposition in Congress. The odds of success on the first launch of any new rocket are about 50-50. "I hope people don't use us as a bellwether for commercial space," Musk said.


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The reality is that aerospace giants such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and their joint venture United Launch Alliance are more likely to win initial NASA contracts for commercial crew transportation.

"Somehow that gets lost in this discussion with the focus on the Falcon 9," said John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University and former director of its Space Policy Institute.

"Clearly, it's important — extremely important — for SpaceX to succeed because in the public, and in the congressional mind, the focus is on SpaceX," he said, but the first unmanned Falcon 9 test flight "is not the be-all and end-all of commercial crew."

A native of South Africa, Musk, 38, founded SpaceX in 2002 with money made during the dot-com boom. By age 28, Musk had built and sold Zip2, a company that created the technology to put newspaper-style ads and city directories on the Internet. Compaq bought it for $307 million.

His next endeavor was PayPal, a company that created a secure way to transfer money on the Internet. PayPal was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

The Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft are designed to fly cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station and other destinations. Ultimately, the company wants to make the whole Falcon 9 rocket reusable.

"The goal is to one day — and it will take a lot of time and effort — to make space accessible to the average citizen," Musk said.

The more near-term goal: Help the U.S. fully utilize the International Space Station, the operation of which would be extended to 2020 under the Obama space plan. The U.S. has spent more than $50 billion on building the outpost.

"What I hope we'll see is crews of five to seven people shooting back and forth to the International Space Station three or four times a year," said former NASA chief astronaut Ken Bowersox, SpaceX vice president of astronaut safety and mission assurance. "That'll make me happy."

SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion NASA contract to launch 15 Falcon 9 missions — three test flights and 12 missions to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. Contract options could increase the value of the deal to $3.1 billion. The company also holds contracts to launch payloads for customers in Argentina, Canada, Europe, Israel and the USA.

SpaceX employs about 1,000 people, mostly at its headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. Others work at an engine test facility in Texas. Company launch sites also include Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX invested its own money to stage the May 11 test flight. The aim is to make certain the Falcon 9 is ready to fly the first of three NASA demonstration missions later this year.