CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Space shuttle Atlantis is slated to return to Earth next week and close the 30-year-old human spaceflight program. When it does, NASA will have no U.S. spacecraft to replace its ability to rocket people into orbit. As a stopgap measure, NASA recently agreed to a $763 million contract for 12 Russian rocket rides from 2014 through 2016. By that time, the space agency hopes at least one of four private companies it's seeding with cash will demonstrate a crew-ready spaceship. SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies), a start-up firm started by PayPal founder Elon Musk, is widely considered to be leading the pack of firms that includes Blue Origin, the Boeing Company and the Sierra Nevada Corporation. In addition to several successful launches of its home-grown Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX successfully launched their own capsule spaceship (called Dragon) into orbit on Dec. 8, 2010. “Nobody else can say that,” said former astronaut Garrett Reisman, now a senior engineer working for the company on Dragon’s human-carrying capabilities. “We’re pretty confident with where we stand in terms of the competition.” A few days before the last space shuttle launch, Reisman and other SpaceX staff hosted a tour of their rocket assembly building, launch pad, launch control center and other facilities at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Here are some of the highlights. Above: Garrett Reisman and the Dragon Capsule Reisman addresses news media while he stands in front of the beat-up Dragon capsule mock-up recovered from the Pacific Ocean in December 2010. Image: Dave Mosher/Wired.com

Launch Control Center The facade of SpaceX’s launch control center (above) is fairly uninspired, but architectural mastery is not what the company prides itself on. Inside, up to 22 controllers use dozens of computer screens (below) to monitor the pulse of every launch attempt. If a rocket goes astray, the U.S. Air Force has the ability to blow it into pieces. Images: Dave Mosher/Wired.com

Failure Is Not an Option Each workstation in the launch control center has three monitors that display real-time launch data (above). Below, a flight controller’s mousepad attests to his or her dedication to a successful launch. Images: Dave Mosher/Wired.com

First Stage Inside a warehouse near SpaceX’s launch pad, engineers piece together a Falcon 9’s first stage on a horizontal platform (above). Like most of the machine’s hardware, the stage's parts are manufactured in Los Angeles and shipped to Florida for assembly. Below, one of nine “Merlin” rocket engines pokes out of the rocket’s base. Each is capable of about 130,000 pounds of thrust by burning kerosene with liquid oxygen. (Engineers in the assembly warehouse wouldn’t let us take pictures inside of the engine cones, lest we reveal their trade secrets.) Images: Dave Mosher/Wired.com

Beneath the Falcon 9 A different view of the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage shows its patriotic decal (above). Once fully assembled — a process that takes a couple of months — steel railroad tracks (below) allow engineers to roll the high-tech hollow cylinder out to the launch pad for lifting into a vertical position. Images: Dave Mosher/Wired.com

Engineer at Work Above, an engineer in the assembly warehouse makes himself busy at a workstation. A rocket system feed-line mock-up (detail below) sits to his right. Images: Dave Mosher/Wired.com

Safety First An oft-repeated talking point in the proximity of SpaceX employees is “safe, reliable and affordable.” A well-labeled locker of flammable fluids (above) and a day-glow-orange “foreign object debris” bag (below) testify to detailed safety protocols. As for reliability, two out of two launches of the Falcon 9 rocket went off without a hitch. (It's predecessor, a one-engine rocket called Falcon 1, however, suffered several early launch failures.) And the company is perhaps the only one to publicly advertise its launch costs, which come in at two to three times less than “the other guys,” said one SpaceX representative during the tour. The next-generation, one-engine rocket called Falcon 1e will cost $10.9 million per launch. The Falcon 9 rocket in this gallery is pegged at $54 to $59.5 million. In the future, SpaceX expects its beefed-up Falcon Heavy, which is still in development, to cost between $80 and $120 million per launch. Images: Dave Mosher/Wired.com

Space Launch Complex 40 SpaceX has three launch facilities: one on Omelek Island in the Marshall Islands, one at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, called Space Launch Complex 40 (above). The Florida-based facility is an old U.S. Air Force launch pad SpaceX has leased from the military wing for 5 years. Launch towers and wires between them protect exposed rockets from errant lightning strikes. A mobile transporter-erector (white scaffolding on blue trucks, below) rolls down railroad-like tracks on the pad to pick up finished rockets in the assembly warehouse. Once the rocket is at the pad, the transporter-erector lifts the rocket to a vertical position in about 12 minutes. Images: Dave Mosher/Wired.com

Important Pipes Unlike the solid-fuel rockets used on the space shuttle, SpaceX fills chambers in its launch hardware from the bottom up with kerosene and liquid oxygen. Pipes like the one above are heavily bolted to make sure there’s no dangerous leaks. Below, more of the oxygen- and kerosene-delivery pipes are visible in the shadow of the launch pad’s sturdy steel-plate frame (center). Right before launch, controllers ignite the fuel mixture as it spews out of the rocket’s nine engines. The launch pad clamps and fuel lines remained attached to the rocket until computer systems verify the engines are lit and ready for liftoff. When they do, the clamps and fuel lines break away, the rocket leaves the pad and propels itself spaceward. Images: Dave Mosher/Wired.com

Ancient Oxygen Tank A giant oxygen tank left over from the Apollo era provides liquid oxygen storage for SpaceX’s rockets. NASA sold the 110,000-gallon tank to SpaceX for just $1 over the price of its scrap metal value for a total of $89,000. A newly built tank may have cost upwards of $2 million. Images: Dave Mosher/Wired.com

Rocket Exhaust Control The sound generated by gushing rocket exhaust can rattle a launch vehicle into pieces. SpaceX combats the problem by diverting exhaust out two sides of its launch pad. They also muffle noise with these bleacher-like baffles -- structures one SpaceX representative jokingly called the “VIP seats.” Heavy-duty camera housings (below) allow engineers to record and pore over every detail of a launch. Images: Dave Mosher/Wired.com