SpaceX, one of the commercial companies that are developing space craft designed to service the International Space Station under a government program, has announced the next test of its Dragon space ship to be launched by the Falcon 9 rocket.
Combining two previously planned test flights, SpaceX intends to launch a Dragon into low Earth orbit on Nov. 30. The Dragon would fly in orbit for nine days before rendezvousing and berthing with the International Space Station. The test would be a test of a cargo resupply flight to the ISS.
SpaceX executed a successful test of its Dragon/Falcon 9 which launched from a pad at the Kennedy Space Center in December, made an orbit of the Earth, and then successfully splashed down in the Pacific. The previous flight was hailed at the time as an important milestone toward the development of a commercial space flight industry. Should the November test flight prove successful the next flight would deliver actual cargo to the International Space Station, beginning the first commercial space service in which NASA would be the prime customer.
The next step for SpaceX, as well as other companies developing commercial space craft, will be to develop piloted space ships that would bring astronauts to and from the ISS, as well as other destinations in low Earth orbit. Besides the technical challenges of such an endeavor, political and fiscal problems loom ahead.
The Obama commercial crew program, which proposes to spend billions of dollars to develop piloted commercial space craft, has been sharply criticized by members of the Congress. The House has already voted to cut President Obama's funding request for the next fiscal year from about $850 million to $300 million.
Critics regard the Obama administration's decision to go "all in" on commercial space to replace America's capacity to send her astronauts into space lost with the end of the shuttle program as risky and smacking of crony capitalism. Supporters of the commercial crew program have in turn harshly attacked congressional critics. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been especially pointed in his criticism, even while he lobbied for more money.
The political headwinds that the commercial crew program is experiencing casts the upcoming Dragon test flight as holding great importance for its future. Should the test flight succeed, an argument would be created for continuing and fully funding the commercial crew program. Should it fail, however, the political enemies of the scheme will become emboldened, placing the entire future of commercial space flight in doubt,
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly.
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