This is the third in a series of Wired Q&As with spaceflight experts leading up to SpaceXs launch. You can read the first part and then the second.

We may be at the dawn of a new, private era in space.

In the near future, SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket will liftoff the launchpad, bringing the Dragon spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Until now, only the U.S., Russia, Japan, and the European Union have accomplished such a goal. If SpaceX succeeds, it will become the first private company to do so.

This week, Wired interviews experts in the spaceflight community to discuss the ways this historic launch will impact NASA and mankinds presence in space. Is it a giant leap, or just a baby step?

Today we have Linda Billings, a space policy analyst at George Washington University in Washington D.C. She does communications research regarding NASAs astrobiology program and advises the agencys Mars Exploration and Planetary Protection programs.

Wired: Will this launch be a big game changer for how spaceflight is done?

Billings: Its certainly different from the past. We didnt have Internet billionaires in the 1980s. But I think some of the rhetoric from the new spaceflight companies masks whats going on.

They say this is all that free-spirited, free-market, American-style pioneering the future. But its not really some huge new never-been-done-before method. What irks me about the rhetoric is that these private companies trying to launch new things are receiving government subsidies. So lets call them what they are.

Wired: How do you think this will this impact NASA?

The rest is here:

Q&A: Space Policy Analyst on Historic SpaceX Flight