From Shuttle to SpaceX: How the upcoming launch represents a step forward for space travel

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — The long lead-up to this weekend’s rescheduled launch marks a change for U.S. spaceflight.

The launch, which was scrubbed Wednesday and now set for this weekend, marks the country emerging from a shuttle system designed by NASA decades ago, moving to a launch system developed by SpaceX, a private company.

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Phil Metzger worked on the Shuttle program, and his dad worked on the Apollo.

While the shuttles were part of the space travel glory days, Metzger said it was “a pickup truck.”

“It was designed to haul payloads and humans at the same time,” he said.

With that dual cargo came expenses. A single shuttle launch could run $450 million. The shuttles were also supposed to be turned around to launch every two weeks.

The best NASA ever did was a month turnaround, or about three months downtime for each shuttle.

“We would work months to get it ready for the next launch,” Metzger said.

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With a decade since the end of the program, commercial companies have run with the opportunity.

What has since been designed is simpler, and cheaper.

The Crew Dragon, like what will carry two astronauts to the International Space Station this weekend, can launch for a quarter of what the shuttle cost.

“It’s also a cheaper, simpler way to land,” Metzger said. “Because it’s simpler, it’s quicker to turnaround, to operate. By having multiple providers, we’re going to have resilience, so that we’re never going to have a gap like this ever again.”

The SpaceX Crew Dragon sits on top of a rocket, not stuck to the side like the Shuttle. That way, the Crew Dragon can be pulled away in case of an emergency.

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The Shuttle-era was like the tall ships of the 1600s, when around-the-world sailing was new and romantic.

With the Crew Dragon, some of the romance may be gone, Metzger said – but a new love is around the corner.

“By moving on, beyond that story of romance, we’re going to be opening up new ones,” he said.

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But even though times have changed, when the final countdown comes, “there (are) no shades of gray,” Metzger said.

“You either go or scrub,” he said. “(It is) the most binary decision in all of engineering, which took years to get to.”

Video: SpaceX, NASA set for historic crewed mission following scrubbed launch The historic launch of two astronauts into space from Cape Canveral will have to wait.

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