By Andy Pasztor
Elon Musk's SpaceX and NASA blasted two astronauts into orbit,
marking the first human launch from U.S. soil in nearly a decade
and a new partnership between industry and government aimed at
revitalizing the country's space ambitions.
Saturday's successful blastoff -- from the same launchpad at
Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., that sent Apollo
crews to the moon during the height of the Cold War -- sought to
highlight American persistence and scientific know-how even as the
U.S. continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic. It also is
the first step seeking to establish the trajectory for space
tourism, provide momentum for proposed public-private partnerships
to explore the moon and eventually set the stage for longer
ventures deeper into space.
The launch was the second attempt after bad weather foiled the
mission initially scheduled Wednesday barely 17 minutes before
liftoff. Even if the rest of the mission goes as smoothly as
Saturday's events, such public-private partnerships face
significant funding and technical challenges, starting with current
uncertainties about making a profit from ventures outside the
Earth's atmosphere.
Strapped into a reusable, gumdrop-shaped capsule called Crew
Dragon, veteran astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley embarked on
a scheduled 19-hour voyage to the international space station
circling the globe 250 miles up, with President Trump and Vice
President Mike Pence observing the fiery scene in person. The Space
Exploration and Technologies Corp. Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at
3:22 p.m. local time, successfully reaching initial orbit 12
minutes later. The crew is slated to remain at the international
laboratory for at least two months, before returning with the
capsule's parachute landing in the Atlantic.
The day before liftoff, NASA chief Jim Bridenstine drew a
parallel between current national crises -- including Covid-19 and
nationwide protests against police brutality toward black Americans
-- to moon landings amid race riots and anti-Vietnam War
demonstrations two generations ago. "NASA has a long history of
doing stunning things in the middle of very difficult times," he
told Bloomberg television.
The smooth countdown had its share of suspense nonetheless, as
weather forecasts the evening before predicted only a 50-50 chance
of acceptable conditions with rain in the vicinity and even a
tornado warning. Dark, towering clouds and rain surrounded the pad
during earlier portions of the countdown, but the weather improved
dramatically about an hour before launch. The flight director
declared the mission "go for launch," with no rain evident and
weather conditions, including winds and clouds, projected to be
acceptable.
During a chat with the crew earlier in the day, Mr. Bridenstine
said the astronauts were joking with each other as they donned
spacesuits. "They're trained, they're ready but they're also
loose."
Technically a demonstration flight to test the capsule's
performance and give the crew a chance to check out touch-screen
controls and other systems, the liftoff featured fanfare reserved
for a national celebration. But NASA officials asked local
residents and space aficionados -- who normally throng nearby roads
and the Kennedy site's visitor center to see historic launches --
to watch the festivities from home to avoid spreading the
contagion.
Still, tickets to view the launch from the visitor center, which
opened Thursday, sold out quickly. Despite weeks of repeated
warnings, local tourism officials expected tens of thousands of
people to flock to surrounding beaches to get a glimpse of the
rocket.
With the SpaceX feat, NASA and its astronaut corps seek to
become customers rather than day-to-day managers of transportation
to orbit. SpaceX and Northrop Grumman Corp. already ship cargo to
the space station.
The latest achievement is likely to boost Mr. Trump's broader
space vision, as his administration revamps plans to return
astronauts to the lunar surface by 2024 and champions anticipated
commercial ventures there -- and ultimately in other parts of the
solar system as well. From a strategic perspective, White House and
Pentagon officials also view the mission partly as a way to counter
civil and military advances by China and Russia outside the
atmosphere.
Partisan arguments on Capitol Hill have impeded some U.S. space
initiatives, exacerbating NASA budget travails that threaten
long-term program stability. The agency also has been notorious for
multibillion-dollar cost overruns, nagging schedule delays and a
bureaucracy that space experts say sometimes prizes protecting
federal and contractor jobs above nimble engineering responses.
NASA has invested a total of more than $7 billion of taxpayer
money so far in SpaceX and Boeing Co. efforts to resume astronaut
liftoffs from a U.S. pad, and Mr. Bridenstine sees Saturday's event
as recasting the path for America, other nations and industry to
reach space. U.S. astronauts "need to have the capability of
accessing space, not just for NASA but for all of humanity," he
said this month.
Less than $3 billion of NASA's total investment in such
commercial space taxis so far has gone to support SpaceX's work,
based on agency documents and estimates of space experts. In its
infancy, Mr. Musk's company avoided insolvency by snaring earlier
NASA dollars to develop a cargo-transportation system to the space
station. SpaceX hasn't publicly released details of its own
spending on Crew Dragon, though it will be paid a fixed price for
each astronaut delivered to orbit. Separately, experts have
estimated SpaceX has invested nearly $1 billion to develop a
heavy-lift booster.
Overall, NASA says commercial alternatives will save it some $20
billion, versus the projected development and testing costs for
U.S. government-owned alternative vehicles that the Obama
administration canceled a decade ago. But SpaceX's per-seat costs
have ballooned from its preliminary projections, which promised
lawmakers price tags a fraction of the cost of buying seats on
Russian craft. That has been the only way NASA astronauts have been
able to reach space during the nine years since the shuttle fleet
was retired.
The closely held Southern California company, founded in 2002
and privately dismissed by veteran space executives throughout many
of its early years, bested longtime NASA contractor Boeing for the
honor of providing the initial ride to orbit. In coming months,
Boeing is expected to conduct test flights of its own versions of
space taxis to ferry astronauts to and from the station. Regular
flights by both companies could be under way by 2021. "We are
committed to having two partners," Mr. Bridenstine has said.
On Saturday, however, much of the emphasis was on the flawless
countdown at the historic launch complex 39A, synonymous with U.S.
space exploits. Capping weeks of media buildup and a barrage of
NASA publicity, the crew underwent final medical checks, received
weather and other briefings and then rode to the pad in a white,
electric-powered sedan emblazoned with NASA logos and built by
Tesla Inc., another of Mr. Musk's companies.
During early phases of building the Crew Dragon capsule, Mr.
Musk's engineering and design teams favored a fully autonomous
spacecraft. But NASA officials prevailed on SpaceX's leadership to
include manual options, reflecting persistent technical arguments
from agency experts on top of political sensitivities to protect
the prestige and central role of astronauts.
Once the capsule is safely on its journey to catch up with the
space station, Mr. Hurley, a Marine Corps colonel and mission
commander, will use touch-screen controls to get the feel of manual
handling. "It's obviously something that we want to make sure we
understand completely for future crews," he told reporters
recently.
The crew also will have the chance to report how well Crew
Dragon's bathroom works, just as the astronauts will assess
everything from the performance of life-support systems to mundane
items such as placement of Velcro straps to keep items from
floating around in the weightlessness of space.
With the White House betting so much politically on Wednesday's
mission, the pressure on SpaceX and NASA won't diminish even after
a successful rendezvous in orbit. "I will start sleeping again when
they are back on the planet," Gwynne Shotwell, the company's
president and chief operating officer, told reporters weeks
ago.
Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 30, 2020 15:55 ET (19:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.