Bigelow Aerospace

Bigelow Aerospace's Genesis 2 inflatable space module rushes into an orbital sunrise.

SpaceX and Bigelow Aerospace plan to meet with officials in Japan soon after this month's scheduled launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, to kick off an international marketing effort for private-sector space stations.

The plan, laid out today in a jointly issued news release, calls for clients to go into orbit inside the Dragon and link up with Bigelow's BA 330 inflatable space habitat.

"Together we will provide unique opportunities to entities — whether nations or corporations — wishing to have crewed access to the space environment for extended periods," said SpaceX's president, Gwynne Shotwell. "I'm looking forward to working with Bigelow Aerospace and engaging with international customers."

Robert Bigelow, the billionaire founder and president of Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace, said he was eager to join up with California-based SpaceX and tell international clients about "the substantial benefits that BA 330 leasing can offer in combination with SpaceX transportation capabilities."

SpaceX is planning to launch an unmanned Dragon cargo capsule into orbit as early as May 19 for a potential test linkup with the International Space Station, and is already working with NASA to modify the Dragon for carrying astronauts as well. Just this week, NASA announced that SpaceX reached a milestone in that development effort by showing that seven astronauts could maneuver effectively inside the Dragon space taxi, even under emergency scenarios.

SpaceX

Astronauts and experts check out the crew accommodations in SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. On top, from left, are NASA Crew Survival Engineering Team Lead Dustin Gohmert, NASA astronauts Tony Antonelli and Lee Archambault, and SpaceX Mission Operations Engineer Laura Crabtree. On bottom, from left, are SpaceX Thermal Engineer Brenda Hernandez and NASA astronauts Rex Walheim and Tim Kopra.

Bigelow's BA 330 space module would be designed to provide 330 cubic meters of usable volume, which is about the size of a two-bedroom apartment. The BA 330 could accommodate up to six astronauts, depending on how cozy they plan to get. Two or more BA 330 modules could be connected together in orbit for lease by national space agencies, companies or universities, according to Bigelow Aerospace.

Bigelow made his fortune in the hotel industry, which led some to suppose that he was getting into the space-hotel business — but the first users are likely to be researchers or governments aiming to pursue their own space programs on a leased orbital platform. The company has launched two prototype inflatable modules on Russian rockets — Genesis 1 in 2006 and Genesis 2 in 2007 — and both of those unmanned spacecraft are still in orbit.

Mike Gold, who serves as Bigelow Aerospace's director of Washington operations and business growth, told me that the company was ready to move forward with the BA 330 as well as the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, an upscale version of the Genesis module that could be attached to the International Space Station. Future progress on both those projects is dependent on decisions made by NASA, however. NASA has not yet made a commitment to using the BEAM, and it has not yet announced how it will proceed with the next phase of its effort to support the development of commercial space taxis such as SpaceX's Dragon.

"We'll be ready to proceed when commercial crew is," Gold told me.

SpaceX

An artist's conception shows a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to a Bigelow Aerospace module.

In addition to its marketing arrangement with SpaceX, Bigelow has partnered with the Boeing Co. on a project to create a space taxi called the CST-100 to ferry NASA astronauts. That scenario could see a successor to the CST-100 launched toward a Bigelow-built space station atop United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket.

Gold said the commercial crew vehicle development program was the "long pole in the tent" for Bigelow Aerospace's plans. Even if Bigelow Aerospace built its BA 330, it would have to rely upon an affordable, reliable, safe system for orbital transport — and that system probably would have to be developed and tested with NASA's help.

Four companies, including Boeing and SpaceX as well as Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada Corp., have been receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from NASA, but it's not yet clear how much money Congress will approve for the next phase of the program. If the funding matches NASA's projected levels, space agency officials have said commercial space taxis could be flying astronauts by 2017. "We hope it could be even earlier," Gold said.

However, it's highly questionable whether NASA will get as much money for commercial crew development as it has requested. The request for fiscal year 2013 was almost $830 million, but a Senate subcommittee cut that figure to $525 million. Today the House passed a bill specifying an even lower funding level, $500 million. The White House has threatened a presidential veto of that bill, in part because of its concerns about the cutback in commercial crew support.

More about SpaceX and Bigelow:

• SpaceX shows off its manned Dragon capsule
• SpaceX plans fully reusable space transports
• Bigelow worries that China will claim the moon
• Inside Bigelow's spaceship factory

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

SpaceX

Sparks and clouds of exhaust and vapor issue forth from SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket during a static fire test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Monday.

SpaceX has suggested May 19 as the new date for its potentially history-making Falcon 9 rocket launch to the International Space Station, with May 22 as a backup date.

The schedule shift provides more time for NASA to review changes in the California-based company's flight software, and also avoids a potential conflict with the planned May 14 launch of three new space station crew members from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

If SpaceX's demonstration mission is completely successful, it would represent the first commercial flight to the space station. The flight plan calls for the company's robotically controlled Dragon cargo capsule to conduct a series of maneuvers near the station, starting two days after the Falcon 9 lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 in Florida. If all those maneuvers go as planned, astronauts on the orbiting outpost would latch onto the Dragon and pull it in for a berthing.

About a half-ton of supplies would be unloaded over the course of a couple of weeks, and then the Dragon would be detached and sent back down to a Pacific Ocean splashdown. That success scenario would open the way for SpaceX to start resupplying the space station in earnest, under the terms of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

If the Dragon couldn't hook up with the station this time around, another demonstration flight would be scheduled as a makeup test.

SpaceX has received hundreds of millions of dollars from NASA to develop the Falcon 9 and the Dragon as a partial replacement for the space shuttle fleet, which was retired last year. The Falcon 9 had a successful maiden orbital flight in June 2010, and the Dragon made a similarly successful debut in December 2010. The upcoming flight would provide the first opportunity for an actual rendezvous with the space station.

The launch has been repeatedly delayed, primarily due to flight software reviews. SpaceX conducted a successful launch-pad engine firing test on Monday in preparation for a planned May 7 liftoff, but the company and NASA decided to hold off in order to provide more time for the current review.

"SpaceX and NASA are nearing completion of the software assurance process," company spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham said today in an email, "and SpaceX is submitting a request to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for a May 19 launch target with a backup on May 22. Thus far, no issues have been uncovered during this process, but with a mission of this complexity we want to be extremely diligent."

Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, also indicated in a space agency statement that the May 19 date was doable.

"After additional reviews and discussions between the SpaceX and NASA teams, we are in a position to proceed toward this important launch," he said. "The teamwork provided by these teams is phenomenal. There are a few remaining open items, but we are ready to support SpaceX for its new launch date of May 19."

Because of the orbital mechanics involved with a space station rendezvous, the Falcon 9 must be launched at a precise time of day, with opportunities coming up only every three days.

The current plan would result in a launch at 4:55 a.m. ET May 19. That would provide an ample time interval after the Russians' launch of a Soyuz craft carrying a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts up to the station. That mission, which is due for liftoff on May 14 Eastern time and docking on May 17, will boost the station's crew to its full complement of six spacefliers.

More about SpaceX:

• SpaceX chief plans to become spaceflier
• Next steps in the new space race
• SpaceX has a lofty goal: Help save humanity
• CNBC: Elon Musk on why SpaceX has the Right Stuff
• Cosmic Log archive on the new space race

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

The billionaire founder of the SpaceX rocket venture, Elon Musk, says that within five years he wants to make orbital space trips available to regular passengers — including himself. And if he sticks to his timeline, Musk just might go beyond Earth orbit before NASA's Orion spaceships do.

"Am hoping to travel to orbit in about 5 years, beyond in 7 to 10," he wrote during a Twitter chat organized by The Associated Press. Later, he said it would be "5 years max before we fly civilians." That suggests that Musk is aiming to take an orbital trip in 2017 or so, along with paying passengers, and follow that up with more ambitious journey beyond Earth orbit in the 2019-2022 time frame.

In comparison, NASA's current schedule calls for astronauts to launch aboard its Orion multipurpose crew vehicle, the first NASA spacecraft since the Apollo era capable of taking a crew beyond Earth orbit, no earlier than 2021. The space agency is targeting its first manned mission to a near-Earth asteroid in the mid-2020s.

There are a few caveats to Musk's prediction. First of all, rocketry feats tend to take longer than Musk expects, as he himself acknowledged a couple of years ago during an interview. There's no better illustration of that than the buildup to SpaceX's history-making commercial cargo mission to the International Space Station, which has been delayed repeatedly over the past few months. The launch of SpaceX's Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida had been set for May 7, but SpaceX said liftoff would be held up while NASA was double-checking changes in the flight software.

Musk said today that he was "not surprised" by the latest holdup.

"This mission is super complicated, so delays are to be expected," he wrote during the chat. He said a new launch date would be selected in the "next few days."

This SpaceX mission is a test run, and it's not certain whether the Dragon will get all the way to its docking port on the space station's Harmony module this time around. If it does, that would clear the way for SpaceX to begin robotic cargo resupply missions in earnest later this year, under the terms of a multiyear $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

Musk, who plowed $100 million of his own dot-com fortune into SpaceX, is essential to the venture's success. He's not only the chief executive officer, he's also the company's chief designer and the chief engineer for the Falcon 9 and the Dragon. What's more, he's the CEO and product architect for Tesla Motors, an electric-car pioneer; and the non-executive chairman of SolarCity, a solar-panel company that's reportedly getting ready for an initial public offering.

His key role in so many ventures raises another caveat about that future space trip. Would Musk's investors let him go? On that score, the scenario could well play out the way it did in "The Man Who Sold the Moon," a novella by one of Musk's favorite authors, Robert Heinlein. The story focused on a tycoon who creates a wildly successful lunar venture — but whose dream to travel to the moon himself is frustrated by the venture's majority owners. They decide his blastoff would pose too much of a risk to their fortunes.

Speaking of Heinlein, Musk said during today's chat that "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," one of the sci-fi author's classics, ranks as a favorite book. The other books on top of Musk's reading list include "Ignition!" by John Clark, "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov and "Modern Engineering for Design of Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines" by Dieter Huzel and David Huang.

Musk also hit on the long-running theme that has motivated his rocket interest for more than a decade: making humanity into a multiplanet species. When asked what regular people could do to support SpaceX's efforts, Musk replied: "Rally people around the idea of making life multiplanetary with a base on Mars."

In past interviews, Musk has said it'd be possible for SpaceX to send humans to Mars in 10 to 20 years, and he truly believes that's the only way to ensure the species' long-term cosmic survival amid out-of-the-blue threats such as asteroid strikes.

"For humanity to have an exciting and inspiring future, we cannot be confined to Earth forever," Musk wrote. He said he was "highly confident that Mars can be self-sustaining without terraforming."

He returned to that theme in a video spot airing tonight on PBS' "NewsHour" program. "I'm talking about sending ultimately tens of thousands, eventually millions of people to Mars, and then going out there and exploring the stars," he said.

Does Musk have his head in the clouds? Or is it possible that the 40-year-old billionaire is on to something? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

More about SpaceX and Elon Musk:

• Next steps in the new space race
• Elon Musk says it'd be 'cool' to fly in space
• SpaceX has a lofty goal: Help save humanity
• CNBC: Elon Musk on why SpaceX has the Right Stuff
• Cosmic Log archive on the new space race

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

SpaceX

The SpaceX Dragon capsule is prominent in this photo of the Falcon 9 rocket in its lowered position at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's launch complex in Florida.

The first private-sector spaceship destined to hook up with the International Space Station will have to wait a few days longer than planned for its Florida launch.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket had been scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 on May 7, on a test flight that could climax with a space station berthing of its unmanned Dragon cargo capsule several days later. A launch-pad engine test went off successfully on Monday, but more time is needed to analyze changes in SpaceX's flight software and make sure all systems are go.

"At this time, a May 7 launch appears unlikely," SpaceX communications director Kirstin Brost Grantham said in an email. "SpaceX is continuing to work through the software assurance process with NASA.  We will issue a statement as soon as a new launch target is set."

Due to the orbital mechanics involved in a space station rendezvous, the Falcon 9 can be launched only at a precise time during the day, on specific dates. The next opportunity for launch comes on May 10, but it's not yet clear whether liftoff will be reset for that date. In a Twitter update, Space News' Brian Berger cited an internal NASA manifest that showed the launch slipping to no earlier than May 10. After that date, SpaceX would have to stand down to let the Russians launch a three-person crew in a Soyuz craft to the space station on May 14.

California-based SpaceX has received hundreds of millions of dollars from NASA to support the development of the Falcon 9 and the gumdrop-shaped Dragon capsule for resupplying the space station. The Falcon 9 has been sent into orbit only twice before — once in June 2010 with a test capsule, and again in December 2010 with a functional Dragon spacecraft that returned to Earth after two orbits.

The upcoming demonstration launch has been rescheduled repeatedly, from February to April to May, due to the need for intensive software reviews. The flight plan calls for Dragon to execute a series of maneuvers near the space station. If the spaceship's sensors and flight systems work as designed, Dragon will then fly a rendezvous and approach. If Dragon reaches the station safely, the station's astronauts will use a robotic arm to bring the commercial spaceship in for berthing, and then unload the non-essential cargo that's aboard.

A couple of weeks later, Dragon would be sent back down to a Pacific Ocean splashdown.

A success during this first berthing attempt would open the way for SpaceX to start regular robotic resupply missions to the space station under the terms of a $1.6 billion NASA contract. It also could help pave the way for Dragon to ferry Americans to and from the space station in three to five years, depending on further NASA funding. 

Since the last space shuttle left the station last July, Americans can travel into orbit only as passengers aboard Russian spacecraft, at a cost of about $60 million a seat.

More about SpaceX and the commercial space race:

• Private spaceship launch on the horizon
  
• SpaceX has a lofty goal: Help save humanity
• Next steps in the new space race

Last updated 3:25 p.m. ET. Tip o' the log to NBC News' Cape Canaveral correspondent, Jay Barbree.

 Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

SpaceX conducted a successful test firing of a Falcon 9 rocket's engines on its Cape Canaveral launch pad, one week before its precedent-setting launch to the International Space Station. But it took more than one try.

The initial countdown was halted just 47 seconds before the nine engines were scheduled to start up. SpaceX fixed what it called a "limit that was improperly set" on the flight computer and quickly set up another countdown. The second countdown proceeded smoothly, and the rocket's nine engines fizzed to life for two seconds as expected, at 4:15 p.m. ET today.

"Woohoo, rocket hold-down firing completed and all looks good!!" SpaceX's millionaire founder, Elon Musk, reported in a Twitter update. Meanwhile, company spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham said "engineers will now review data as we continue preparations for the upcoming launch."

This was a full dress rehearsal for SpaceX's second official demonstration flight for NASA. The first demo flight, back in December 2010, sent a gumdrop-shaped Dragon space capsule into orbit for the first time. The second flight, scheduled to lift off as early as May 7, could see the Dragon go all the way to the space station.

The company has received more than $375 million so far from the space agency for the development of the Falcon 9 and the Dragon. SpaceX and another company, Orbital Sciences Corp., are getting the money to help NASA fill the gap in payload transportation capability left by last year's retirement of the space shuttle fleet.

In addition, SpaceX is receiving tens of millions of dollars from NASA under a separate program to make the Falcon/Dragon launch system suitable for carrying astronauts as well as cargo. Musk founded the California-based company in 2002 with the long-range aim of flying people to Mars.

The Falcon 9 didn't fly anywhere during today's test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 in Florida, but if SpaceX and NASA stick to the current timeline, the rocket will send the robotically controlled Dragon capsule into orbit on May 7. A couple of days later, the spacecraft will catch up with the space station and go through a sequence of rendezvous maneuvers.

If the Dragon performs those maneuvers correctly, NASA would give the go-ahead for the Dragon to approach a station docking port. The station's robotic arm would grab onto it and bring it in for berthing. There'll be some cargo riding aboard the Dragon — water, clothing, scientific gear and the like — and the astronauts would take a couple of weeks to take on those payloads and load up the Dragon with Earth-bound cargo. Then the Dragon would be unberthed and sent back down to a Pacific splashdown, marking the successful end of the first flight of a private-sector spaceship to the International Space Station..

There are a lot of "ifs" on that list of contingencies. This launch has been delayed repeatedly due to software glitches, and if a snag like the one that occurred today happened to crop up on May 7, liftoff would have to be postponed for three days. To reach the space station, the Falcon has to lift off right on the dot. The orbital mechanics will not allow for same-day do-overs. But that's OK. Last month, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said "we may have to have a couple of attempts, but we're certainly looking forward to getting that flight off."

If the Falcon 9 and the Dragon pass their tests, that would put SpaceX in a position to ship supplies to the space station in earnest, under the terms of a $1.6 billion NASA contract.

Will SpaceX get 'er done? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

More about SpaceX and the commercial space race:

• Private spaceship launch set for May 7 
• SpaceX has a lofty goal: Help save humanity
• Next steps in the new space race

Last updated 4:27 p.m. ET.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Roger Gilbertson / SpaceX

A Falcon 9 sits on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Update for 10:35 a.m. ET April 10: SpaceX is looking closely at south Texas as the locale for its third launch pad, following Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. However, the California-based company says it hasn't ruled out other options elsewhere.

"SpaceX is considering multiple potential locations around the country for a new commercial launch pad," company spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham said in an email. "The Brownsville area is one of the possibilities."

The potential site near Brownsville in Cameron County, at Texas' southern tip,  came to light in the Federal Aviation Administration's notice of intent to move ahead with an environmental impact statement and other regulatory proceedings. The document was published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, and an advance copy was noted on Monday in Clark Lindsey's RLV and Space Transport News.

SpaceX has been planning to build a purely commercial launch site for months. "We do think we need three launch sites in order to handle all of the launch demand that we have been able to get," company founder Elon Musk told me last summer. Musk said he was considering sites in Texas as well as Florida, Puerto Rico and Hawaii, among other locations.

The fact that the Cameron County site will be the subject of a costly environmental study, as well as a May 15 public hearing in Brownsville, suggests that it's a serious contender if not yet the final selection. The FAA's notice says SpaceX would plan up to 12 launches a year from the site, involving its Falcon 9 rocket as well as the Falcon Heavy, which is currently under development. "A variety of smaller reusable suborbital launch vehicles" would also be launched, the FAA said.

Two Falcon 9's have been launched over the past couple of years from Cape Canaveral, and the third one is due for liftoff on April 30 with the International Space Station as its destination. SpaceX's Vandenberg operation will use the Falcon Heavy for military satellite launches. Musk has said most of the commercial launches on SpaceX's manifest would be shifted to the third launch site. "Just as there are Air Force bases and commercial airports ... there's some logic to separation," he told me.

SpaceX's rocket development facility is based in McGregor, Texas, which is about 400 miles north of Cameron County.

The process of approving and building a launch complex could take several years. Already, some of the commenters on RLV and Space Transport News have noted there are a number of oil rigs surrounding the proposed Cameron County site, which could complicate launch operations. The site is also near a wildlife management area and Brazos Island State Park.

Last July, a judge from neighboring Willacy County told Harlingen's Valley Morning Star that an unnamed aerospace company was negotiating with the county to lease a launch site there.

"They have to be close to water, away from populated areas," County Judge John F. Gonzalez Jr. was quoted as saying. "They have to have at least a 3-mile clear zone around the launch site. ... If it doesn't work out here, there are a couple sites in Cameron County. But they would have to buy up some houses there."

If SpaceX's plans for Cameron County are similar to what was being planned for Willacy County, the economic impact could be significant. "They'll be investing up to $50 million and hiring 100 to 200 full-time people, from low-end labor up to electrical engineers," Gonzalez said last year. "Wages will be at least 30 percent above the local norm."

This report was updated to reflect SpaceX's statement that other sites are still under consideration.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

SpaceX

An artist's conception shows SpaceX's Dragon capsule at the International Space Station for a delivery.

SpaceX's president says the California-based rocket company is preparing to launch the first commercial cargo ship to the International Space Station as early as April 30 — but whether that date holds will depend on what happens between now and then.

The new "no earlier than" date came out on Tuesday during the Satellite 2012 conference in Washington. "I’m happy to say we have a launch date scheduled on the range and a berthing date with the ISS," New Space Journal quoted SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell as saying during a panel. "The launch date is April 30, and we hope to berth on May 3."

That date is just barely in line with SpaceX's previous statements that the company was preparing for a late-April launch of its Falcon 9 rocket, topped by its Dragon cargo capsule. Representatives of SpaceX as well as NASA emphasized that the official date has not yet been set.

"The launch date will be set officially at the Flight Readiness Review on April 12," NASA spokesman Michael Braukus told me in an email. "April 30 is the date SpaceX is working toward."

SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham echoed that assessment. "SpaceX is currently targeting April 30 for our upcoming demonstration mission," she said in an email. "However, NASA will not grant final approval for a targeted launch date until completion of the Flight Readiness Review."

The launch date has been postponed in the past, due to technical issues that have cropped up during the preparations. Even after an official date is set, further postponements may well be in store. Shotwell was quoted as saying that "we may have to have a couple of attempts, but we’re certainly looking forward to getting that flight off."

In a follow-up email, Grantham explained why the launch schedule is subject to change: "The upcoming mission is exciting because of the potential to make history.  But it is a test flight.  This is a challenging mission, and we intend to take every necessary precaution in order to improve the likelihood of success."

The flight plan calls for the robotically controlled Dragon to approach the station and conduct a series of test maneuvers. If everything checks out, astronauts would then use the station's robotic arm to grab the Dragon and bring it in for its berthing. After unloading supplies, the station's crew would unberth the Dragon and send it back down for splashdown and recovery.

SpaceX and another company, Orbital Sciences, have been receiving more than $600 million from NASA for the development of cargo craft capable of filling in for the now-retired space shuttle fleet. If the two companies are successful, they'll be eligible for $3.5 billion in NASA contracts for space station resupply.

SpaceX's Dragon successfully completed its first orbital test in December 2010, but it hasn't flown since. Orbital's Antares launch vehicle and Cygnus cargo craft have not yet gone into space, but their first test flight is scheduled for later this year.

The upcoming SpaceX launch would mark a milestone, due to its status as the first fully commercial flight to the space station. NASA is counting on commercial providers to send U.S. supplies into orbit, and eventually U.S. astronauts as well. Until those commercial craft are in operation, NASA has to depend on other countries for cargo supply, and exclusively on the Russians for crew transport. The per-seat cost for those crew flights is heading upwards of $60 million per seat. SpaceX and other would-be crew carriers, including the Boeing Co., Sierra Nevada Corp. and Blue Origin, say they can match that price.

Those four companies have been receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from NASA for spaceship development, and the Obama administration's budget proposal calls for spending another $830 million on the commercial crew program in fiscal year 2013. That level of support would get the commercial crew transports flying by 2017, NASA says.

More about commercial space:

• Private rocket passes big test for space station launch
• Next steps in a new space race
• SpaceX signs up two more satellite launch customers
• Cosmic Log archive on commercial space

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Armadillo Aerospace

This picture provides a view of the parachute ballute deployment on Armadillo Aerospace's STIG-A III rocket, launched from Spaceport America on Jan. 28.

Commercial spaceship companies are due to get some additional breathing space, thanks to legislation that was approved by the House on Friday and seems certain to become law.

The provision takes up just a few words in the reauthorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration, but the impact of those words could be incredibly significant: Basically, they extend the current regulatory environment for reusable space vehicles for an additional three years, to October 2015. If the provision hadn't been worked out, things could have become much more difficult for space tourism companies.

Right now, the companies that are building passenger spaceships are required to demonstrate to the FAA that they're taking sufficient measures to protect the uninvolved public from harm. They're also required to disclose the risks of space trips to would-be passengers, and get their informed consent for flight. But beyond that, the FAA is restricted in its power to regulate crew or passenger safety.

The reason for that goes back to 2004, when Congress passed a law setting up an eight-year moratorium (some prefer the term "learning period") for passenger spaceflight regulation. The idea was that those eight years would give the space tourism industry a chance to get off the ground, and give regulators a chance to see how the industry's realities would mesh with future regulations. Should commercial spaceflight be regulated like air travel, for example, or more like deep-sea adventure diving?

The only problem is that no paying passengers have yet flown on commercial spacecraft, so it's not possible to do any sort of regulatory reality check. The three-year extension provides more time for companies such as Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace to get their rocket planes ready and build a track record. The current expectation is that passengers will start going into space on suborbital vehicles in the 2013-2014 time frame.

U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a news release that the extension will "promote continued innovation, growth and job creation in this cutting-edge sector of our economy." McCarthy's district includes the Mojave Air and Space Port, where Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, XCOR's Lynx rocket plane and other spacecraft are being developed.

McCarthy's news release provided positive comments from executives at several space companies, including XCOR Aerospace and Virgin Galactic as well as Space Adventures and Sierra Nevada Corp. Back in 2004, I wrote that Jim Muncy, a Washington-based space consultant and founder of PoliSpace, greeted the news of the initial legislation's approval with a "mild expletive of wonderment." Today, Muncy was slightly more measured in his response, but just as positive about the extension's effect.

"The status quo is restricted regulation, it's not a ban on regulation," he told me. "We would like this period of learning and limited regulation to continue for at least a few more years, so that the industry gets flight experience — and oh, by the way, the FAA gets experience with spaceflight as well. We're trying to make this a learning and data-driven process, so that future regulations are based on actual data rather than speculation."

The action in Washington is just one of several small moves reported this week by commercial space companies. But sometimes, small moves are what progress is all about. At least that's what the alien told Jodie Foster in the movie "Contact."

Here are some of the latest small moves, plus a big move that's coming up:

SpaceX conducted a successful full-duration, full-thrust test firing of its SuperDraco rocket engine, which is destined to be used in the launch escape system for its Dragon crew capsule. The eight-engine thruster system would be used to power the Dragon out of harm's way in the event of a problem during ascent, and it's a critical piece of SpaceX's plan to ferry NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station starting in 2017 or so. Discovery News' Ian O'Neill discussed the SuperDraco tests during Thursday's Weekly Space Hangout (you can tune in that part at about the 25:30 point in the video below):

Armadillo Aerospace launched its third STIG-A test rocket from Spaceport America in New Mexico to an altitude of about 50 miles (82 kilometers) on Jan. 28. A test of a balloon-parachute recovery system ("ballute") was not fully successful, but the Armadillo team was nevertheless able to recover the vehicle and pass along some fantastic imagery from the flight. Armadillo says its next test launch is due to go beyond 62 miles (100 kilometers), the boundary of outer space. Eventually Armadillo plans to develop a craft capable of taking passengers on suborbital space rides.

Space Adventures says it's planning for the launch of a Russian spacecraft on a round-the-moon trip in February 2017, with two paying passengers and a cosmonaut commander on board. The Virginia-based company's chairman, Eric Anderson, says one would-be flier has already paid the $150 million fare, and the other open seat is "very close to being sold." Anderson said the venture is shaping up as a "fantastic validation of the marketplace for private spaceflight."

Sierra Nevada Corp. has delivered the primary structure of its first Dream Chaser flight test vehicle to a Colorado facility where it will be assembled and integrated with other flight systems. The vehicle is due to be used for captive-carry and free-flight tests later this year.

NASA says it will be offering $110,000 in awards this July for the Space Frontier Foundation's annual NewSpace Business Plan Competition, conducted at NASA Ames Research Center. Executives from space-oriented start-ups will present their business plans to a panel of experts and investors, and the plan that's judged the best will receive $100,000. There'll also be a $10,000 second prize.

XCOR Aerospace says it will award a suborbital spaceflight on its Lynx rocket plane to "one lucky paid registrant" at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference, scheduled from Feb. 27 to 29 in Palo Alto, Calif. Registration has to be made by Feb. 10 in order to be eligible for the drawing. To read the official rules and register, check out the conference website. The XCOR Lynx flight is valued at $95,000. "We're going to pick a name out of a fishbowl shaped like an XCOR spacecraft," conference organizer Alan Stern told me. "It just shows how approachable spaceflight is going to be."

NASA is due to lay out its plan on Feb. 7 for the next phase in the development of space transportation systems capable of ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Proposals will be solicited from commercial teams, and this summer NASA will select which teams get hundreds of millions of dollars to work on those systems over the next couple of years. It's not yet clear exactly how much money will be available for the coming phase. Nevertheless, if the program goes forward as planned, it'll be a really big move toward once again launching NASA astronauts from U.S. soil on spacecraft made in the USA.

More about the commercial space race:

• NASA says key SpaceX launch may slip to April
• NASA revises its commercial space plans
• The next steps in a new space race
• Boeing runs hard in the new space race
• Future spaceflight goes virtual at Sierra Nevada
• Blue Origin spruces up its rocket report
• Orbital Sciences delivers robotic cargo craft
• Billionaire plans monster plane for orbital launches
• Cosmic Log archive on the new space race

Previously on the Weekly Space Hangout:

• Jan. 26: Moon-base politics and more
• Jan. 19: Is some poor planet getting blasted?
• Jan. 12: Planets, dark matter, "Trek" tricorders and more
• Jan. 5: NASA's moon probes, the hype over 2012 and more
• Dec. 20: All about Kepler's alien worlds

To follow every step in the commercial space industry, keep a close watch on Clark Lindsey's Space Transport News, Doug Messier's Parabolic Arc and Jeff Foust's NewSpace Journal.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Dave Hogan / Getty Images file

Talulah Riley and Elon Musk strike a celebrity pose after their arrival at the Orange British Academy Film Awards ceremony held at London's Royal Opera House last February.

Elon Musk, the founder of the SpaceX rocket venture and head of Tesla Motors, heralded the end of his high-profile marriage to British actress Talulah Riley last night with a tragic tweet.

"It was an amazing four years," Musk said in a Twitter update addressed to Riley. "I will love you forever. You will make someone very happy one day."

Musk, 40, and Riley, 26, capped their relationship in 2010 with a storybook wedding in the same Scottish castle where the singer Madonna was married to actor Guy Ritchie. (That marriage also ended in divorce, which could impact Skibo Castle's reputation as a wedding chapel.) Musk was just coming out of a messy divorce from sci-fi novelist Justine Musk, his first wife and the mother of his five children. Riley, meanwhile, was riding high after taking on notable roles in "Pride and Prejudice" and "St. Trinian's."

Just a few months ago, Britain's Tatler magazine published an interview with the couple that gave little hint of the breakup. Today, Musk told Forbes magazine's Hannah Elliott that he would "always be friends" with Riley but that it was "far too difficult to stay married."

"We took some time apart for several months to see if absence makes the heart grow fonder, and unfortunately it did not," Elliott quoted Musk as saying. "I still love her, but I’m not in love with her. And I can’t really give her what she wants."

There's been no public reaction from Riley, either in the press or on Twitter.

Beyond the tabloids
Now that we're done with the tabloid angle, I'll just note that Musk has more on his mind than his marital troubles: First, the timing for the demonstration flight of SpaceX's Dragon capsule to the International Space Station is currently in limbo. It had been scheduled for Feb. 7, but this week SpaceX said the launch would be delayed to address "a few areas that will benefit from additional work."

For now, SpaceX isn't specifying exactly which areas of the project could use some additional work, but the launch isn't expected to be delayed more than a couple of months. "We will launch when the vehicle is ready," company spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham said in an emailed statement. 

The Dragon's launch on a Falcon 9 rocket would herald a major milestone in the commercialization of orbital spaceflight. The current plan, which has to be cleared not only by NASA but also by the Russians and other space station partners, calls for the unmanned capsule to approach within 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) of the orbital outpost, and then go into a holding pattern. If everything checks out, the Dragon would make another approach, stopping just a few yards (meters) from a docking port. Then the station crew would use the robotic arm to pull the capsule in for a docking. After running through tests, the Dragon would undock and head back to an ocean splashdown.

A fully successful test would open the way for commercial cargo flights to the space station, and give a boost to NASA's plans for commercial crew operations sometime in the latter part of this decade.

Even as SpaceX continues with preparations for the launch, Musk has another "launch" coming up: the unveiling of Tesla Motors' all-electric Model X crossover vehicle, scheduled for Feb. 9. The Model X, a minivan-SUV-type automobile, is due to join the Roadster and the Model S sedan as a Tesla offering in late 2013.

More about Musk and his ventures:

• Next steps in a new space race
• SpaceX gets go-ahead for space station trip
• Elon Musk sets his sights on Mars
• Battery cars face an uphill climb

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

The band is getting back together: Seven years after winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize, software billionaire Paul Allen and aerospace guru Burt Rutan are teaming up with SpaceX and other top-flight rocketeers to create an air-launched orbital delivery system. They say the venture will require the construction of the largest aircraft ever flown.

Allen unveiled his new company, Stratolaunch Systems, at a Seattle news conference today. It marks his first space venture since the partnership with Rutan to build the prize-winning SpaceShipOne rocket plane, which became the first privately developed craft to reach outer space in 2004.

The Seattle native, who made his fortune as a Microsoft co-founder, said he's long dreamed of following up on SpaceShipOne's success with another revolutionary space effort. "You have a certain number of dreams in your life that you want to fulfill, and this is a dream I'm very excited about," he told journalists and VIPs at the headquarters of Vulcan Inc., which serves as the umbrella company for many of Allen's ventures.

Rutan, who retired from Scaled Composites in April at the age of 67, will serve as a board member for Stratolaunch. He said Allen was the "perfect team member and customer" when they worked on SpaceShipOne. "I'm looking forward to doing that again," Rutan said.

The new venture is significant for the revival of the Allen-Rutan partnership, with the addition of California-based SpaceX and Alabama-based Dynetics as new suppliers. It's like putting Roy Orbison and Bruce Springsteen on the same music stage. 

Other players include Gary Wentz, a former chief engineer at NASA, who will serve as Stratolaunch's CEO and president; and former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, who is on the board.  Griffin said the Stratolaunch air-launch system could make spaceflight more routine by removing many of the constraints associated with ground-based launches. However, getting the company off the ground will require a large investment as well as "the courage to fly through failure to get to success," Griffin said.

Allen agreed that his latest venture won't come cheap. He said he'll spend "at least an order of magnitude more than I put into SpaceShipOne." Allen's investment in SpaceShipOne was estimated at $25 to $30 million, which suggests he's prepared to put at least $250 million to $300 million into Stratolaunch.

Mothership plus rocket
The Stratolaunch system would super-size the arrangement used for the SpaceShipOne launches: Scaled Composites has been tapped to build a carrier airplane that weighs more than 1.2 million pounds, with a wingspan of more than 380 feet. That tonnage rivals the weight of the Antonov An-225, which is recognized as the world's heaviest aircraft. Stratolaunch's dual-fuselage plane would be powered by six 747 engines, and would require a 12,000-foot runway for landing.

Wentz said the venture already has a contract to acquire two Boeing 747s. The engines as well as other subsystems would be used on the Stratolaunch super-carrier. However, Scaled Composites President Doug Shane told me that the 747's metal skin wouldn't go onto the plane. Instead, the new plane's wings and fuselage structure would be fabricated from advanced carbon composites.

Rutan joked that the plane was "relatively close to building, as soon as we can get a building big enough."

The plane would be capable of flying up to 1,300 nautical miles to reach its launch point. SpaceX would provide a shortened version of its Falcon 9 rocket for the next phase of Stratolaunch's route to orbit. Wentz described it as a "Falcon 4 or 5." The multistage booster would be attached to the plane using a mating and integration system developed by Dynetics, and released during the mothership's flight at 30,000 feet. After release, the 490,000-pound rocket would light up to send commercial and government payloads weighing up to 13,500 pounds into low Earth orbit.

Elaine Thompson / AP

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, right, shakes hands with former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin as aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan looks on, following a Seattle news conference to announce the creation of Stratolaunch Systems.

Griffin said the Stratolaunch system would initially serve "a thriving commercial satellite market, small to medium" — the type of market previously served by the now-retired Delta 2 rocket.

Wentz said the rocket to be developed by SpaceX would not compete with SpaceX's own Falcon 9, which can lift 23,050 pounds to low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral. Allen said "we're in a different class of payload size," and SpaceX's vice president for government sales, Adam Harris, concurred. "There's room in that [payload] class for something new," Harris told me.

Allen said the Stratolaunch system won't take on human passengers until the system's safety and reliability are fully demonstrated. But if and when it does, "we could be very competitive" with the $60 million-a-seat fee that the Russians will be charging NASA over the next few years, he said. Rutan suggested that people could make up a significant share of the payloads in the longer term. "I don't think there's any limit to the number of payloads in that category," he said.

Stratolaunch's briefing materials said more than 100 people have already been assigned to the effort in California and Florida as well as in Alabama, where the company is headquartered. Flight tests of the plane are due to start in 2015, with the rocket added to the test phase in 2016. The plane will be tested at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, but the base for launch operations has not yet been selected.

Re-entering the space race
Allen and his partners say air-launched systems can send payloads into space at lower cost, with greater safety, more flexibility and faster turnaround time than ground-launched systems. That would be because the carrier airplane effectively gives the rocket a head start on its ascent to orbit, and can launch from a variety of midflight locations. But the launch industry is becoming more competitive, thanks in part to the rise of SpaceX and smaller rocket companies such as Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace.

Someday, Allen and Rutan may find themselves in competition with Virgin Galactic, which has incorporated SpaceShipOne technology into the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane and is expected to start commercial service in the next year or two. Today, however, Virgin Galactic issued a statement welcoming the new venture.

"It takes me back to the exciting conversations the three of us had in 2004 when we first started talking about commercializing SpaceShipOne technology," Virgin Galactic's founder, British billionaire Richard Branson, said in the statement. "We've come a long way since then; WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo are built and flying, and we have nearly 500 private individuals and science researchers signed up and ready to fly. The potential of the industry we are leading is immense but will depend on the continuing emergence of truly safe, affordable and transformative technologies. Burt and Paul's record in that respect is unmatched. I hope that in due course, in partnership with Stratolaunch and others, we will be able to repeat the pattern that has worked so spectacularly well in the suborbital sphere, for orbital spaceflight.”

The commercial space race may have changed over the past seven years, but Allen clearly wants to get back on the track. At the end of his autobiography, "Idea Man," he dropped a broad hint about the plans announced today. "I'm just now considering a new initiative with that magical contraption I never wearied of sketching as a boy: the rocket ship," he wrote. "Someone, after all, is going to have to get behind SpaceShipThree."

But does Allen expect to ride the Stratolaunch into space someday? During the news conference, the 58-year-old billionaire said he'd probably wait until a good number of flights have been flown. "I'm actually a really conservative guy in some aspects," he confessed.

More on the future of spaceflight:

• Next steps in a new space race
• Private-sector space age turns 7
• SpaceX chief aims for Mars
• Boeing runs hard in the new space race
• Future spaceflight goes virtual at Sierra Nevada
• Blue Origin spruces up its rocket report
• Cosmic Log archive on the new space race

Last updated 11:20 a.m. ET Dec. 14.

Correction for 4:20 p.m. ET Dec. 13: I originally wrote that two failed NASA missions (Orbiting Carbon Observatory and Glory) were launched using air-launched systems — but they were actually launched from the ground, using Orbital Taurus XL rockets. Sorry about the error. I had the Orbital Pegasus XL in mind, which has recorded a string of successful launches from the air going back to 1997. The Taurus XL was derived from the air-launched Pegasus XL.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

If you think America's space effort is in a state of flux now, you ain't seen nothing yet: Just wait until billionaires Richard Branson and Robert Bigelow are vying to offer orbital hotels, or until there are as many brands of spaceships built in the United States as commercial jets.

Or not.

That's the curious thing about Space Race 2.0: It's definitely a marathon, not a sprint, and the field of contestants have had dropouts (like the bankrupt Rocketplane Kistler) as well as drop-ins (like the Boeing Co.).

If any of the racers make it to the finish line, NASA will once again be able to send U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station on U.S.-built spacecraft, ending the post-shuttle spaceship gap. There may also be opportunities for businesses and foreign governments to purchase their own presence in space, in the form of private-sector space stations. Regular folks may be able to buy vacation packages that include a quick up-and-down on a suborbital spacecraft, or even a stay on one of those space stations.

There'll be new opportunities for space research and manufacturing as well. Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institution as well as an adviser to the Blue Origin space venture, has called low-cost space research the "killer app" for the space travel industry — right up there with space tourism and space station resupply.

But what steps lie ahead for private space ventures, and what's the time frame for taking those steps?

A crucial year
For the companies seeking NASA's business, the next six months to a year will be crucial: Four companies — Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp. and SpaceX — are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from NASA to develop spaceships capable of ferrying astronauts to the space station and back. SpaceX and yet another company, Orbital Sciences Corp., have already been receiving NASA funding to support the development of unmanned cargo spaceships.

In February, SpaceX is due to launch a test cargo shipment to the space station and bring the capsule back to Earth. Orbital Sciences, meanwhile, is gearing up for its first test flight of its Taurus 2 launch vehicle in the same time frame. By 2013, both companies should be cleared for orbital cargo deliveries as part of a $3.5 billion combined deal with NASA.

The development effort for crew vehicles is more complex, due to the higher safety requirements. Last month, Congress settled on an allocation of $406 million for the next phase of the commercial crew development program, or CCDev. That's less than half of the $850 million requested by the Obama administration, and NASA hasn't yet laid out a revised plan for the next development round.

Based on the space agency's previously announced plans, the money for the next phase would be given out starting next July, for the development of an integrated system that includes a space-taxi capsule as well as the rocket it rides on. SpaceX can already offer the full package, which combines its Falcon 9 rocket with its Dragon capsule. The other contenders will have to buddy up with rocket builders — either United Launch Alliance, which offers the Atlas 5; or ATK and EADS Astrium, which have proposed creating a hybrid rocket called Liberty. Right now, the Atlas 5 is the favored vehicle in the rocket race, but the next phase of CCDev provides an opportunity for dark horses like ATK to get back in the race.

As long as no one crosses the finish line, NASA is stuck in the position of paying the Russians $50 million or more for each seat filled by a U.S. astronaut heading to the space station. So the space agency has a powerful interest in making sure that at least one space-taxi operator succeeds. NASA expects that it'll be using U.S.-built space taxis in the 2017 time frame, but warns that reduced funding levels will slow down the timeline.

Suborbital space race
Meanwhile, additional companies are aiming for suborbital space business, either for research or tourism purposes. Among the major players in this particular race are Armadillo Aerospace, Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace,

Virgin Galactic says it's on track to begin powered test flights of its SpaceShipTwo craft early next year, with an eye toward offering suborbital trips at $200,000 a seat in 2013. Branson, the company's founder, is aiming even higher: "We're starting by suborbital trips, we'll then go to orbital trips, we're then going to look at space hotels. We're going to look at intercontinental travel at a speed much quicker than you can currently travel," he told me during an interview in October.

XCOR Aerospace plans to start testing its Lynx rocket plane in the air within a year, and wants to take on tourists starting in the 2013-2014 time frame.

Armadillo has partnered up with Space Adventures, the company that has sent seven paying passengers to the space station, to develop a suborbital launch system capable of carrying passengers or scientific experiments. The New Mexico Spaceport Authority says Armadillo ran a successful test of a reusable sounding rocket known as STIG A on Dec. 4. The rocket rose to an altitude of 137,500 feet (41.91 kilometers), and carried a scientific package from Purdue.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos, is also working on a suborbital spaceship project that's separate from the NASA-funded orbital effort. (The company is bouncing back from the crash of a suborbital test vehicle in August.)

Next giant leap
Of course, there's no guarantee that any of these companies will get off the ground on the timetable they expect. This space race is notorious for slowing down the pace: Spaceship builders have been predicting that the golden age of private spaceflight is just two years away for the past 15 years.

The interesting thing is that the different companies are coming together in combinations that make the space race look more like a square dance: Space Adventures is teaming with Armadillo on suborbital tourism, with Boeing on orbital tourism, and with the Russians on trips to the space station and even the moon. Sierra Nevada is relying on Virgin Galactic's help for atmospheric tests of its prototype orbital vehicle, while Virgin Galactic is relying on Sierra Nevada to provide the hybrid rocket engine for SpaceShipTwo. Boeing is a partner with Lockheed Martin in United Launch Alliance, which plans to provide rockets for Boeing as well as two of its CCDev competitors.

Bigelow Aerospace, which has already put two of its inflatable space modules into orbit on Russian rockets, could conceivably purchase launch services from SpaceX or United Launch Alliance to establish future private-sector space stations — and it's teaming up with Boeing and Space Adventures to make the arrangements for orbital trips by tourists and researchers.

Where could all this lead? Would you believe to Mars? At least that's what SpaceX founder Elon Musk expects. He's teaming up with NASA's Ames Research Center on a proposal for an unmanned Mars mission in the 2018 time frame, and he has said SpaceX's rockets could send humans to Mars in the next 10 to 15 years if that's what NASA wants to do.

"The reason to do space and to try to push the boundary of space is that it's one of the coolest things that humanity, or we as a country, can do," he told me. "We want there to be cool things. Life cannot just be about solving problems. If that's all it's about, why get up in the morning? There's got to be things that are inspiring and make life worth living — and I think pushing the boundaries of space and the outer frontier is one of those things."

More on the future of spaceflight:

• SpaceX chief aims for Mars
• Boeing runs hard in the new space race
• Future spaceflight goes virtual at Sierra Nevada
• Blue Origin spruces up its rocket report
• Cosmic Log archive on the new space race

This report draws upon videos that are part of a Future of Technology package produced by msnbc.com's Matt Rivera. Stay tuned for a new twist in the saga of future spaceflight on Tuesday.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

SpaceX

Artwork shows SpaceX's Dragon capsule delivering cargo to the International Space Station.

The lines of debate over the future of space exploration are becoming clearer — and it doesn't necessarily add up to a pretty picture. NASA's $35 billion Space Launch System is just a piece of the puzzle: This week's developments also touch upon SpaceX, the James Webb Space Telescope and next-gen technologies. Here are a few not-so-easy pieces to muse over during the weekend:

James Webb Space Telescope: A House panel stirred up a ruckus earlier this summer when it called for canceling the JWST, the grand observatory widely regarded as Hubble's heir. The problem is that the project is way behind schedule and over budget. Now the Senate Appropriations Committee has released its version of the fiscal 2012 bill that covers NASA's budget, and it provides just enough money to keep the JWST on track, based on NASA's current projections. Some observers are exulting that the next-gen telescope has been "saved," but there's a long way to go yet, including House-Senate budget negotiations.

Space Launch System: The same Senate bill follows through on the SLS plan that senators worked out with NASA and the White House. It would provide $3 billion during the next fiscal year ($1.8 billion for the rocket, $1.2 billion for the multipurpose crew vehicle), just as NASA projected. A $17 billion cost cap is also specified for work through fiscal 2017. That compares with NASA's estimate of $18 billion earlier in the week. New-space opposition to the SLS plan is continuing, with the Space Access Society and the Space Frontier Foundation weighing in against what they see as a money-gobbling white elephant. But one of the Senate bill's provisions would hold back $200 million of the $500 million allotted for NASA's commercial crew program unless NASA makes good on its promise to get to work on the SLS. For details on the Senate bill, check out the Space Politics blog and Space News.

SpaceX schedule: California-based SpaceX, which is arguably the country's most successful new-space venture, voiced support for the $500 million commercial crew plan laid out by the Senate bill. The company had been due to launch an uncrewed Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station on Nov. 30, as the final test opening the way for U.S. cargo resupply flights in the post-shuttle era. But this week, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that mission might have to be postponed until January or February, due to the launch delays caused by last month's problem with a Soyuz rocket. What's more, RIA Novosti quoted a Russian space official as saying that SpaceX does not have permission to dock with the space station. "So far, we have no proof that this spacecraft duly complies with the accepted norms of spaceflight safety," said Roscosmos' Alexei Krasnov. That led NASA to issue a Twitter retort: "A decision has yet to be made regarding the upcoming @SpaceXer test flight to ISS."  

Wild-card technologies: There's good news and bad news for space technology fans. First, the good news: NASA announced awards totaling up to $3 million to five companies working on solar electric propulsion, the kind of technology that many experts think will be needed for a mission to Mars. Today, NASA announced additional awards amounting to more than $3.7 million for two "game-changing" space technologies: beamed power (for ground-to-air and ground-to-ground applications) and next-generation lithium-ion batteries (for future space missions). Now for the bad news: The Senate bill for fiscal 2012 trims almost $400 million from President Barack Obama's $1.02 billion request for space technology initiatives. (The good news is that it's more than what the House bill would provide.)

How do you see the space picture shaping up? Feel free to add your comments below.

More puzzle pieces to ponder:

• Big questions about big rockets
• Some scientists balk at telescope bailout
• Is Apollo's past spoiling our future in space?
• Houston Chronicle SciGuy: A splash of cold water

The best source for keeping up with the new space race is Clark Lindsey's RLV and Space Transport News. But if you're interested in this subject, you probably knew that already.

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.