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New space race: Orbital will outsource

By Staff | Jul 19, 2011

MIAMI – When the space shuttle Atlantis launched July 1, it had one primary mission: Resupply the International Space Station. And when it returns to Earth, another spaceship is ready to take on that mission – for a profit.

A California company has a rocket and a $1.6 billion NASA contract that could have it supplying the ISS by the end of the year. Within the next six months, ace Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, plans to make its first test dock with the orbiting lab and deliver supplies, a major step in NASA’s strategy to remain in space without a spaceship of its own.

“We see Dragon and Falcon 9 as inheriting the Shuttle’s legacy,’’ SpaceX spokesman Bobby Block said of the company’s capsule and rocket, both built using nearly $300 million in NASA seed money.

The shift from NASA-owned ships to essentially rented vessels has sparked a wave of worry over the future of space travel in general. Perhaps nowhere is the anxiety more pronounced than in Brevard County, the heart of Florida’s fabled Space Coast.

Through attrition, layoffs and canceled contracts in a process that began in 2008, the retirement of the shuttle program is expected to cost the region $2.8 billion in economic activity, and about 13,000 jobs.

United Space Alliance, a consortium of private contractors responsible for many of the shuttle operations, told Florida regulators they plan to eliminate more than 1,900 jobs within the next six weeks alone.

NASA promises the private-sector space flights will be a temporary break in the agency’s pursuit of cosmic destinations.

A fledgling NASA program would build a new ship capable of returning to the moon or landing on an asteroid. Both are seen as potential midway points for a manned mission to Mars. That kind of undertaking would likely bring the Space Coast its third big windfall, following the heydays of the Apollo and shuttle programs.

Until then, though, a certain amount of hope rests on spaceships for hire.

“That’s our opportunity to create more opportunity for jobs post-shuttle, where in the Apollo days we didn’t have that chance,’’ said Lynda Weatherman, head of the Economic Development Commission for Florida’s Space Coast.

She was referring to the lean years at the Kennedy Space Center, as the United States ended its Moon missions on Apollo rockets while gearing up for the shuttle trips to Earth’s orbit.

“There is work to be done,’’ she said. “The space station is there.’’

Space “tourism” gets much of the attention when it comes to private spaceflight. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has already collected $57 million in deposits for flights 60 miles into the sky, high enough to experience weightlessness and see the Earth’s curvature, a spokeswoman said. The spacecraft is going through tests before it can make an inaugural flight; tickets cost $200,000.

But replacing the shuttle has prompted a more high-stakes space race as companies compete to snag lucrative delivery contracts – cargo and crew. Until private firms are cleared for human space travel, NASA plans to pay Russia to bring astronauts to the space station. The cost should be about $65 million per seat. SpaceX is testing a vessel it says can do the job for about $20 million per passenger.

Even the space program’s biggest supporters concede private companies can probably put payloads and astronauts into orbit faster and cheaper than NASA can. Space flight has gotten routine enough that the margins are squeezable.

SpaceX is run by Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal, the leading processor of online transactions. Among its competitors for NASA contracts for human spaceflight: Blue Origin LLC, a company based in Washington State and backed by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com Inc. NASA awarded Blue Origin about $25 million in seed money to help develop a spaceship for the post-shuttle era.

Two other companies are in the running to take over the shuttle’s delivery route to the ISS: Sierra Nevada Corp., of Sparks, Nev., and Boeing Co., long one of NASA’s primary contractors.

“The space shuttle had its job. It was like a big moving truck,’’ said Sierra Nevada Chairman Mark Sirangelo, referring to the shuttle’s central role in assembling the ISS. “Now you’ve moved into your house. You just want an SUV to get you around town.’’

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