HAWTHORNE, California – Building a successful startup in Silicon Valley is hard, but it’s not rocket science. Unless you’re SpaceX.

Eschewing the traditional startup trappings of two college grads eating ramen, watching Adult Swim and coding until the wee hours of the night, SpaceX instead employs hundreds of brainiacs and builds its rockets in a massive hangar that once housed a 747 fuselage factory.

Started in 2002 by PayPal founder Elon Musk, SpaceX (short for Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) brings a startup mentality to launching rockets into orbit, which until recently was almost exclusively government turf. The hope is that minimal bureaucracy, innovation and in-house manufacturing and testing can be used to put payloads into space at roughly one-tenth the cost of traditional methods.

If the company’s newest rocket, the Falcon 9 , successfully completes its two scheduled launches this year, it will rendezvous with the International Space Station in 2010. After that, it will officially begin its mission as NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services platform, replacing the space shuttle as the method for transporting cargo and crew to the ISS.

SpaceX launched its first rocket, the Falcon 1 , last September, placing a dummy payload into orbit. Space enthusiasts are holding their breath to see how Falcon 9 performs.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at SpaceX’s facility. This is how the private sector builds a rocket capable of space travel.

Looking less like a lab full of rocket scientists and more like Google, SpaceX foregoes offices and private meeting rooms. Instead the company opts for an open floor plan and glass-paneled conference rooms. Don’t be fooled, those are rocket scientists.

Photos: Dave Bullock/Wired.com

Later this year, SpaceX will launch its much larger Falcon 9 rocket. If all goes well, the craft will make several orbits around the Earth before splashing down off the California coast. If the mission is a success, a commercial payload will be launched before the end of 2009.

The Falcon 9 ’s capsule, Dragon, is designed to carry cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.

An engineering model of the SpaceX’s capsule, Dragon, is used to test configurations of the craft.

Photos: Dave Bullock/Wired.com

SpaceX uses a high-tech, strong and lightweight aluminum-lithium alloy with a rigid internal structure in the construction of its Falcon 1 rocket. The lighter the rocket, the heavier the payload can be.

An extremely accurate laser survey device, left, is used to ensure that rocket parts fall within SpaceX’s tight tolerances.

Photos: Dave Bullock/Wired.com

High-pressure, high-temperature manifolds and final rocket cones wait for assembly into rocket engines.

The business end of a Falcon 1 rocket stage fuel tank stands nearly ready to be mated with a rocket motor and blasted into space.

The Falcon 9 ’s top nose cone fairing, left, is built around a multi-armed support structure to provide a rigid skeleton when forming the composite shell. The top nose cone will form the exterior of the top of the rocket and partially protect the payload.

Photos: Dave Bullock/Wired.com

Much larger than the Falcon 1 , the Falcon 9 first stage, right, is ready for its end cap to be attached (see bottom photo).

The first and second stages of the Falcon 9 , left and right respectively in top photo, are nearly identical, with the second stage being a shorter version of the first. The domes and walls of the stages are made with a superstrong aluminum-lithium alloy.

The end caps are covered with a special heat shielding designed to protect the stages upon reentry so they can be recovered and reused.

Photos: Dave Bullock/Wired.com

Several rocket motors sit waiting to attached to Falcon rockets or test platforms, but first they will need to be assembled. The stand in the photo below supports the rocket motor during the assembly process.

These motors take the propellant and focus it in the right direction. They’re right where all those impressive flames shoot out at launch. The special shape creates the huge amount of thrust that gets the rocket into space.

Photos: Dave Bullock/Wired.com

Machinists in the SpaceX shop use computerized mills and lathes to form raw chunks of exotic alloys into working rocket parts.

In the top photo, a machinist inspects a small part he is drilling with a computerized mill.

Another machinist waits for a robotic press to finish shaping what appears to be a fuel tank fairing, as seen in slide 6.

A rocket motor is being formed in a milling machine. The hoses hanging from the door are used to lubricate the bit and wash away slivers of metal the mill removes.

A robotic drill press cuts precise, computer-guided holes into a block of metal that will soon find its way into a rocket.

Here, a machinist adjusts the tooling on a large hydraulic press that is shaping a fuel tank fairing.

A partially finished rocket motor awaits machining next to a mill.

Photos: Dave Bullock/Wired.com

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