SpaceX Leaps Ahead to Dock with Space Station

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright May 25, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

              Forty-year-old billionaire space entrepreneur Elon Musk has done what no private citizen has done in world history:  He created his own rocket and spaceship, blasted off terra firma and docked with the International Space Station.  Only a few governments, Russia and China, or group of European nations, have spent the resources to accomplish such stupendous feats.  SpaceX’s recent Cape Canaveral launch of its Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket heralds a new leap into commercial space operations, beating his competition at Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences Corp, Arlington, Va.-based Alliant Techsystems, Chicago-based Boeing Space Systems and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos-owned, Kent,Wa.-based Blue Origin into space and to the International Space Station.  Musk, the founder of PayPal, created Space Explorations Technologies, Inc. in 2002 to commercialize space.

             When the late President John Kennedy announced at Rice University Sept. 12, 1962 his bold goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade, it was an unprecedented challenge to U.S. ingenuity.  Americans were still smarting over Russia beating the U.S. into space and orbit, promising the U.S. would never lag behind again.  Kennedy, though deceased, fulfilled his promise, landing Apollo 11 on the moon July 20, 1969.   No one imagined in those early days of the U.S. Space Program that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NASA] would retire its last manned spaceship July 20, 2011 when the Space Shuttle Atlantis [STS-135] completed its last flight.  After Atlantis touched down, it was the first time in NASA’s history to not have a replacement spacecraft.  NASA’s lack of vision and planning opened the door for commercial space entrepreneurs like Musk.

             When President Barack Obama announced April 15, 2010 NASA’s intent of  creating a new spacecraft over the next 25 years to land on a distant asteroid, his audience groaned, realizing the U.S. had no real plan after the Space Shuttle’s expected retirement.  When the Space Shuttle took its maiden manned voyage July 12, 1981, it was nearly 13 years after Apollo 7’s first manned mission. Watching the Shuttle Program retire without a replacement space vehicle was a low point in NASA’s 53-year-history.  It took nine long years after Apollo 17 finished its last mission Dec. 7, 1972 before the Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off Cape Canaveral April 12, 1981.  Unlike the Space Shuttle that started its development in 1968, perhaps as far back as the X-15 in 1958, NASA had no plans for a new spacecraft after the Shuttle, leaving a gaping hole in U.S. manned space operations.

             NASA has been making excuses ever since Atlantis and the rest of the Shuttle fleet were sold off as relics to museums around the country.  “Let private industry do what it does best and let NASA tackle the challenging task of pushing the boundary further,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, pretending it’s up to bigger-and-better-things.  Suggesting that the private space industry plans to play NASA’s UPS or FedEx is preposterous.  While Musk gears up for manned space operations in his Dragon spacecraft next year, SpaceX has long since begun work on long-range space vehicles and propulsion systems.  Barack’s promise for NASA to create a long-range spacecraft to land on a distant asteroid or eventually Mars doesn’t admit NASA’s current built-in obsolescence.  Space companies like SpaceX or Orbital Sciences aren’t content to sit on their hands.

             If creating a new, reusable spaceship were so easy, as NASA suggests, they would have created it years ago.  Russia’s Soyuz capsule is the last manned spaceship ferrying astro-or cosmonauts to-and-from the ISS.  SpaceX’s successful docking yesterday gives another way of re-supplying the ISS.  With over 1,800 employees and growing and with a budget in the billions, SpaceX is far more likely than NASA to create the next generation of interplanetary rockets and space vehicles.  Musk has already stated for the record his intent of interplanetary travel, going beyond Mother Earth for exploration and colonization.  Instead of letting the Chinese Shenzhou program to be the first back to the moon, it’s time for Musk to set his target on returning to the moon.  However much seed money NASA has dolled out to private sector space companies, there’s no assurances that it’s back in the space vehicle game.

             SpaceX has surpassed NASA and other private sector space companies by leaps-and bounds completing its historic docking with the ISS.  It’s highly efficient Falcon 9 rocket and newly designed Dragon spacecraft should be the prototypes of future propulsion systems and spacecrafts needed for the next step of returning to the moon and interplanetary space travel.  NASA’s failure to replace the Shuttle indicates a lack of planning and appropriate research-and-development.  If it were really so easy to develop a new spacecraft, Obama wouldn’t have cancelled the Constellation Program April 15, 2010. Canceling the Orion Multipurpose Space Vehicle started in 2006 to replace the aging Space Shuttle Program, told the real story.  Pretending that NASA is up to bigger-and-better things denies the inefficiencies, cost overruns and time delays, giving companies like SpaceX a real leg up in manned space flight

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