Little spaceflight outfit aiming high

Asked what bugs them most about NASA outsourcing the job of flying crews to the international space station, some astronauts roll their eyes and say: “Dragon.”

That’s the name of the capsule being built by SpaceX, the aerospace startup founded by Internet tycoon Elon Musk. It’s a vehicle that’s designed to be fully automated.

But with no controls to “fly” their ride, astronauts fear they’ll be “Spam in a can” - little more than human cargo. And if they don’t pilot a ship, they worry, how can they keep the fleet of T-38 trainer jets that are the symbol of the astronaut corps?

With the United States space program facing a crisis, with nothing to replace ...