Private Space Ventures

Many private projects have been announced. Among the most notable is Bigelow Aerospace, which has successfully launched and tested two space station modules, Genesis I and Genesis II, and plans to build the first orbital space hotel. The first component of the space hotel, named Sundancer, is scheduled for launch in 2011. The expected cost for a one-week stay on the station is approximately $7.9 million. All of Bigelow's current space habitat designs are based on NASA's Transhab design. The Google Lunar X-Prize also promotes private space exploration by offering a prize of $20 million for the first privately funded company to land a robotic rover on the moon, as well as a $10 million second prize. Companies such as Odyssey Moon and Astrobotic Technology are currently developing robotic landers and rovers for the competition. SpaceX has also performed two successful flights of their Falcon 1 launch vehicle; the first successful fully liquid-propelled orbital launch vehicle developed with private funding and have scheduled their Falcon 9 vehicle for its first launch in late 2009. Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Scaled Composites have announced taking human space tourists into space with SpaceShipTwo, a reusable, sub-orbital spaceplane, to be unveiled in December, 2009, and begin public flights in 2010 (see Virgin Galactic). SpaceShipTwo will be able to transport eight humans (two pilots and six passengers) into space at a time. A ticket on SpaceShipTwo currently costs $200,000, but the price is expected to drop to $20,000 over time.

Source: Wikipedia