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Since the shuttle's retirement last summer, American astronauts have been hitching rides to the space station aboard Russian rockets, and Russian, Japanese and European ships have been delivering supplies. SpaceX has spent more than $1 billion on the project. Musk, the 40-year-old entrepreneur who helped create PayPal and runs the electric car company Tesla Motors, has poured in millions of his own fortune, and NASA has contributed $381 million in seed money in a venture that has been likened to the public-private collaboration that built the Internet and won the West. Even Musk's rivals were rooting for a successful flight. "The shuttle may be retired, but the American dream of space exploration is alive and well," said Mark Sirangelo, chairman of Sierra Nevada Corp.'s space systems, which is developing a mini-shuttle to carry space station crews in a few years. The Dragon capsule will stay at the space station for a week and then splash down in the Pacific, bringing back experiments and equipment. None of the other cargo ships now in use are designed to return safely; they burn up on the way down. Two more Dragon supply missions are planned this year, regardless of what happens this week. The rocket also blasted into orbit around the Earth the ashes of more than 300 people, including Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and actor James Doohan, who played Scotty on "Star Trek." The ashes were in a section of the rocket that was jettisoned during the climb into space. ___ Online: SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com/ NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/home/ Celestis Inc.: http://www.celestis.com/
[Associated
Press;
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