( CNN ) -- On Saturday , a company called SpaceX was scheduled to launch the first private mission to the International Space Station , demonstrating a freight-carrying capability NASA gave up when it retired its fleet of space shuttles in July . ( The flight was aborted at the last second after a faulty valve was discovered ; SpaceX officials said the launch was postponed till Tuesday or Wednesday . ) Some NASA supporters are mourning what they see as the decline of U.S. leadership in space . But they should really be celebrating the dawn of a new era . After all , we 've been stuck in low Earth orbit for several decades now , at considerable cost . Visionary plans for genuine space exploration have gathered dust at NASA , the National Research Council and other space-savvy places . They advocate relearning how to land on the moon or figuring out how to travel to Mars , an asteroid or the special orbital location where the James Webb Space Telescope will eventually operate . But after more than two decades of talking that talk , the U.S. has yet to walk that walk . Turning over routine space trucking to private industry has important benefits . It frees NASA to innovate and to develop a new heavy-lift capability commensurate with real space exploration . At the same time , it empowers private industry to play a significant role in the nation 's space future . Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket , its Dragon capsule filled with food , supplies and science experiments , had been scheduled for 4:55 a.m . ET from the SpaceX launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida . When it launches , three days later , astronauts will use a robotic arm to attach the Dragon capsule to the station . Cargo will be unloaded , return cargo loaded in , and the capsule will return to splash down in the Pacific . Light Years : SpaceX Dragon to launch Saturday . It will be the third launch of the Falcon 9 rocket ; the second launch of the Dragon capsule , the first with components needed for space station docking ; and one of 12 planned SpaceX flights to the International Space Station . SpaceX admits the riskiness of its endeavor . The current flight has already been delayed several times because of problems with the flight software . Space-flight veterans in the company are well aware of the trial-and-error nature of technology development , but they also know risk is an essential part of innovation . NASA 's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program is funding a handful of private companies -- including SpaceX ( Space Exploration Technologies Corporation ) ; Orbital Sciences Corporation , which built the Pegasus rocket launch system 20 years ago ; Blue Origin ; Boeing ; and Sierra Nevada -- to carry cargo to the International Space Station . ATK ( Alliant Techsystems Inc. ) plans to use its Liberty rocket to launch humans into orbit by 2015 . CNN Explains : Commercial space flight . Many of these private companies have goals far beyond servicing the space station . Taking over space trucking from NASA allows them to pay the bills as they develop increasingly capable space vehicle systems . Then , providing they can reduce space launch costs by a large factor , they may be able to exploit new business opportunities , including passenger traffic to outer space . Still , they are not motivated by purely commercial concerns . The financial backers of these companies -- Elon Musk of SpaceX or Blue Origin 's ( and Amazon 's ) Jeff Bezos -- have invested hundreds of millions of dollars of their own fortunes . They doubtless would like their space adventures to turn a profit , but at heart they are modern-day pioneers who want to do something profoundly important for the future of humankind . Take the example of Planetary Resources , a company that recently announced plans to investigate and eventually mine rare metals from asteroids . The news stories emphasized PR 's business plan , but their goals are far broader . They will first build small space telescopes to observe asteroids , so they can understand these building blocks from which Earth formed . Asteroids larger than about 100 meters ( 328 feet ) in diameter are a potential hazard for the Earth , and understanding their composition will allow better prediction of their impact on the planet . Should we ever need to deflect an asteroid , we 'll need to travel to it . So , while Planetary Resources might have a plan to make money down the road , they will first contribute critical knowledge to humankind , perhaps helping save the planet from destruction . Furthermore , with an asteroid visit and perhaps even a sample return , Planetary Resources will discover whether materials essential for human sustenance ( hydrogen , oxygen , nitrogen , water ) can be recovered from these deep space objects . If so , they could set up interplanetary supply depots to enable human colonization of space . So there is a lot more to space commerce than mining asteroids for rare metals . Private space companies describe a vision that sounds like the original NASA : big goals , with small but steady steps toward those goals , and much support but little interference from the nation . People who have visited SpaceX say its employees are among the best and brightest and that they mean to change the world . This is just what NASA did in the 1960s when humans moved out of low Earth orbit and ventured to the moon . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Meg Urry .
Meg Urry : SpaceX to launch first private freight-carrying mission to the space station . She says some lament decline of U.S space leadership , but in a sense it frees NASA . She says NASA can focus on space exploration ; companies are in it for business . Urry : Companies also are doing pioneering work that will be helpful to humankind .