nullTest of the launch abort system for NASA's orphaned Orion spacecraft.

NASA

There is a bright blue sky over Denver, and Mark Sirangelo is eager to fly. A 50-year-old engineer with short black hair, a buttoned gray shirt, and dark slacks, Sirangelo strides into a small hangar just outside downtown. A few helicopters wait inside, including a cherry-red one that looks like something out of a giant Lego set. 

But Sirangelo has not come for any of these. He heads to a strange, white-and-black ship parked in the corner, one that looks like a giant prop from a science fiction movie. Measuring about 30 feet long by 20 feet wide, it has two sweeping wings near the back and a wide, curving window over the nose. The words “Dream Chaser” are printed on the side in sky blue near a golden arc, an American flag, and a NASA logo. The big ship is so odd that when Sirangelo nears, a tanned pilot at one of the copters drops what he’s doing and jogs over to ask what the heck it is. “It’s a spacecraft,” Sirangelo replies with an evasive smile.

As that smile hints, his answer is truthful but wildly incomplete. The Dream Chaser is the creation of the Sierra Nevada Corp., an electronic systems manufacturer in Sparks, Nevada. For more than 20 years, the company’s space exploration department has helped build technologies ranging from handheld rocket motors to communication satellites. Under the guidance of Sirangelo, it is now taking on a far more ambitious project. By 2014 the Dream Chaser could make its first orbital flight, and shortly thereafter it could be routinely ferrying up to seven people into low Earth orbit—on a visit to the International Space Station, for instance.


That is where the NASA logo on the side of the ship comes in. The Dream Chaser is the most tangible product of the space agency’s controversial new mission: privatizing space exploration. Ever since its birth in 1958, NASA has been synonymous with America’s manned space program, from the triumphs of the Apollo missions to the disasters of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. That all changed in February, when President Obama proposed an end to the $100 billion Constellation program, whose goal was to create the spacecraft and rockets needed to take humans back to the moon and beyond. With the space shuttle program already slated to wind down by early 2011, NASA will soon have no ability to send humans into space on its own. Instead, it is turning to entrepreneurs like Sirangelo to do the job.

To stimulate the nascent private space industry, Obama has requested that $6 billion of NASA’s budget over the next five years be directed to space tech development. Earlier this year, Charles Bolden, NASA’s administrator, put a small but symbolically significant bet on the table, awarding $50 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (better known as the stimulus act) to private spacecraft developers, whom he called “the faces of the new frontier.” These faces run from established players like Boeing to brash start-ups like Blue Origin, launched by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Sierra Nevada was a big winner, receiving $20 million for the Dream Chaser project. The Obama plan is to create a diverse industry of taxi fleets that will transport cargo and crew to low Earth orbit, both for NASA and for commercial enterprises such as satellite companies or space tourism.

The administration’s move has sparked a battle not just for contracts but for the soul of the space program. NASA sees privatization as crucial to addressing the chronic mismatch between the agency’s grand plans and its modest budget. “At NASA we need to focus our resources and priorities on conquering the hardest challenges in space—moving on to the moon, Mars, and the rest of the solar system,” says Alan Lindenmoyer, Commercial Crew and Cargo program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “This is a great opportunity to count on the skills of American ingenuity to take on the task of routine access.”

But many politicians and pundits do not trust that private companies can get the job done safely and effectively. Their concerns range from the technological challenges to the economics of putting people into space: If NASA downsizes, where will the money come from to finance the development of a whole new industry? And if other customers do not materialize, can NASA alone keep that industry afloat? The attacks have been especially swift and sharp from senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Richard Shelby (R-AL), who represent states that currently get substantial NASA investment, as well as from former Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan. Armstrong called the cancellation of Constellation "devastating." More surprising, even major aerospace companies have expressed doubt. John Karas, vice president and general manager of human spaceflight at Lockheed Martin, recently declared, “I don’t think there is a business case for us.”

“I don’t believe this was the right way to go at this time, as it places an incredible amount of pressure on private companies,” says Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “They say they’re up to it, and I hope they are, but government policy should not be so reliant on private business plans.”

And yet Sirangelo continues to smile. He is not worried about the pressure to succeed. From his point of view, he is already doing it.

Next page: The birth of private spaceflight