SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Tomorrow, SpaceX is planning a test launch of its massive new rocket Starship. It's a huge part of the company's plans for the future. But as NPR's Geoff Brumfiel reports, those plans might strand one of its biggest allies, NASA.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Starship is the largest rocket ever built. It's a giant stainless steel beast, and when it lifts off, the roar is deafening.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Three, two, one.
(SOUNDBITE OF STARSHIP ENGINES IGNITING)
BRUMFIEL: Elon Musk said he hopes it will one day carry astronauts to Mars. But currently, the job of moving people around in space falls to another, much smaller SpaceX rocket. It's called the Falcon 9. It shuttles astronauts to and from the International Space Station using a capsule called Dragon.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Dragon Grace and Crew 13 making contact with the International Space Station at 6:05 p.m. Central time.
BRUMFIEL: All that may soon change.
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GWYNNE SHOTWELL: Yeah, we definitely want to move from the older technology to the newer technology.
BRUMFIEL: That was SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, speaking at the All-In Summit in September.
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SHOTWELL: A Falcon 9 with a Dragon capsule on top is like a minivan - road trip in a minivan. The road trip to Mars is six months, so you don't want to be in the minivan.
BRUMFIEL: The problem is that minivan is perfect for taking astronauts on a short jaunt to the space station. In fact, it's currently the only American option for making the trip. Caleb Henry directs research at Quilty Space, a firm that tracks the space industry.
CALEB HENRY: Because Dragon has been such a successful and reliable vehicle, it became the de facto way for astronauts to get to orbit.
BRUMFIEL: He says building space capsules is time-consuming and expensive. And as it turns out, NASA is about the only one willing to pay.
HENRY: Today, there is not a strong commercial market for human space flight.
BRUMFIEL: Starship can't currently carry NASA astronauts, nor does it seem to be a priority. SpaceX wants to use it first to dramatically expand its internet satellite business Starlink and for possible data centers in space. Satellite internet and data centers are key to growth. In a post earlier this year, Musk said, quote, "it makes sense to shift superscarce SpaceX engineering and production resources to Starship." Tim Farrar is president of TMF Associates, a telecom analysis firm that tracks SpaceX. He says the change in priorities represents a changing business.
TIM FARRAR: SpaceX has now got an enormous amount on its plate.
BRUMFIEL: And as it's grown, its contracts with NASA have become way less valuable to the company.
FARRAR: It's not making a lot of money out of NASA. Although it seems likely that the individual missions are profitable, they're small potatoes.
BRUMFIEL: That wasn't always the case. In 2008, NASA funding was widely believed to have saved SpaceX.
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ELON MUSK: We were running on fumes at that point. We had virtually no money.
BRUMFIEL: That's Musk recounting what happened in a 2014 interview on "60 Minutes." Just days before Christmas, NASA came through with a big contract.
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MUSK: I couldn't even hold the phone. I was like - I just blurted out, I love you guys.
BRUMFIEL: For the next decade, a steady diet of NASA and eventually Pentagon contracts kept the company going, according to Farrar.
FARRAR: I think it's a shock to a lot of people that NASA would do all this work. They were responsible for SpaceX essentially not going bankrupt. One might hope that there's a bit of loyalty.
BRUMFIEL: It's still not clear when SpaceX will retire the Falcon 9 rocket. The company did not respond to NPR's request for comment. And NASA has a capsule built by Boeing they could eventually use instead, but Henry says it will likely be much more expensive. Geoff Brumfiel, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF STARSHIP SONG, "NOTHING'S GONNA STOP US NOW") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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