The
private spaceflight company SpaceX is set to launch its Dragon capsule
toward the International Space Station on Saturday (May 19). If all goes
well, Dragon will become the first commercial vehicle ever to dock with
the orbiting lab.
But it may not be the last. Dragon is just one vehicle in a new
generation of private American spaceships on the horizon. Some aim to
launch tourists and scientists to suborbital space, while others are
vying to fill the orbital cargo- and crew-carrying void left by the
retirement of NASA's iconic space shuttle fleet in July 2011.The list of future private space travel projects started out short, but has steadily grown longer in in recent years. In addition to SpaceX, at least one other company - Orbital Sciences Corp., of Virginia - has a NASA contract to provide robot cargo ship deliveries to the space station. Companies like XCOR Aerospace and Virgin Galactic have their sights set on the suborbital spaceflight market, while Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas hopes to build its own private space stations
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