'Taxi Service' to Space Pads Looking More Feasible

Fancy your own space pad? Bigelow Aerospace has a couple orbital habitats that might be of interest. And the test launch of Space Exploration Technologies' Falcon 9 rocket today is pumping new life into the possibility of private space taxi service to such privately owned inflatable habitats.

"We're coming closer than ever before to having a space transportation system," said Mike Gold, chief counsel for Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace, which launched its first prototype inflatable spacecraft into orbit  in July 2006 and its second a year later.

Both ships, called Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, remain operational.

"If anything, the Genesis program was too successful. We thought it would take longer to demonstrate our technology," Gold told Discovery News.

The primary hurdle turned out to be transportation, but Bigelow is so optimistic the gates to space are about to open, it is now actively selling space aboard Sundancer, its first planned operational outpost, which is scheduled to be launched by SpaceX in 2014. By then, SpaceX and other firms, including Boeing, which is working with Bigelow, could be in the space taxi business.

"We're now able to tell customers what we believe the ride will be," said Gold. "We're more confident than ever that a safe, affordable reliable space transportation service will be available."

Underpinning the fledgling commercial human space launch industry is a proposal being pushed by the Obama administration to shift how NASA flies crewmembers to the space station, a service now provided by Russia at a cost of $50 million per person.

With the shuttle fleet retiring this year, NASA had planned to develop a new launch system that could also travel to the moon. Instead, Obama wants NASA to buy commercial launch services, rather than develop and operate its own rockets. The agency's focus in the near-term would be on developing new technologies to make human travel to asteroids, Mars and other destinations in the solar system possible in the next 15 years.

Falcon 9's debut launch should not be a verdict on the viability of commercial space, Musk told reporters Thursday. "Commercial space is the only way forward. If we go with super-expensive government development, in the absence of some massive increase in the space budget, we will never do anything interesting in space. It's not a path forward. It's the only path forward."

"Access to microgravity can and will be the next step in humanity's technological evolution," added Gold. "Microgravity, like the Internet, impacts every single endeavor."

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from a newly refurbished launch complex at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It launched on its second attempt, after its first try was aborted in the final seconds before takeoff.