Chap­ter 33: Pri­vate Space

SpaceX’s jour­ney from 2009 to 2010 marks a piv­otal peri­od in the pri­vate space explo­ration indus­try, pri­mar­i­ly due to its col­lab­o­ra­tion with NASA to sup­ply the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion (ISS). This part­ner­ship chal­lenged SpaceX to devel­op a rock­et sig­nif­i­cant­ly more potent than the Fal­con 1, lead­ing to the cre­ation of the Fal­con 9. This new rock­et, fueled by nine orig­i­nal Mer­lin engines and stand­ing at an impres­sive 157 feet, was both a tech­ni­cal mar­vel and a logis­ti­cal chal­lenge, dwarf­ing its pre­de­ces­sor in size, pow­er, and weight.

The devel­op­ment of the Fal­con 9 neces­si­tat­ed not only a more pow­er­ful launch­er but also the cre­ation of a com­pat­i­ble space cap­sule to trans­port car­go and poten­tial­ly crew to the ISS. This led to the design and birth of Drag­on, a cap­sule that would become syn­ony­mous with SpaceX’s ambi­tion and tech­no­log­i­cal prowess.

SpaceX’s aspi­ra­tions also drove the com­pa­ny towards estab­lish­ing a more prac­ti­cal and scal­able launch site. Mov­ing away from the remote Kwa­jalein Atoll to the sto­ried Kennedy Space Cen­ter at Cape Canaver­al, SpaceX secured Launch­pad 40, a site with a rich his­to­ry of launch­es dat­ing back to the Air Force’s Titan rock­ets.

The trans­for­ma­tion of Launch­pad 40 under SpaceX’s stew­ard­ship, spear­head­ed by engi­neer Bri­an Mos­dell, was char­ac­ter­ized by fru­gal­i­ty and inno­va­tion. This peri­od was marked by scav­eng­ing for inex­pen­sive mate­ri­als and chal­leng­ing exist­ing aero­space norms to dras­ti­cal­ly reduce costs. Musk’s approach to ques­tion­ing and revis­ing estab­lished process­es led to sig­nif­i­cant sav­ings, show­cas­ing SpaceX’s abil­i­ty to rethink space launch stan­dards rad­i­cal­ly.

Dur­ing this trans­for­ma­tive peri­od, SpaceX not only nav­i­gat­ed tech­ni­cal chal­lenges but also engaged with polit­i­cal and indus­try land­scapes, notably dur­ing Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma’s admin­is­tra­tion. Lori Garver’s advo­ca­cy for pri­vate sec­tor involve­ment in space explo­ration, cou­pled with SpaceX’s suc­cess­ful Fal­con 1 launch, high­light­ed the shift­ing dynam­ics towards pri­va­tiz­ing cer­tain aspects of space trav­el. This shift, how­ev­er, was met with mixed reac­tions with­in NASA and the broad­er aero­space com­mu­ni­ty, set­ting the stage for ongo­ing debates about the role of pri­vate com­pa­nies in the future of space explo­ration.

SpaceX’s jour­ney through these years exem­pli­fies the chal­lenges and tri­umphs of pri­va­tiz­ing space launch capa­bil­i­ties. The devel­op­ment of the Fal­con 9 and Drag­on cap­sule, the adap­ta­tion of Launch­pad 40, and the engage­ment with polit­i­cal enti­ties under­score the com­pa­ny’s resilience, inno­va­tion, and the broad­er evo­lu­tion of space explo­ration.