For this desert gambling town it could become an odds-on favorite: Inflatable space modules. With company facilities spread out across some 50 acres here in North Las Vegas, Bigelow Aerospace is bankrolling big-time the private development of large space habitats. Extensive work is underway in designing and building partial and full-scale inflatable modules, fabricated to serve a range of users, from bio-tech firms and educational institutions to other groups wanting to churn out made-in-microgravity products.

A mere five years ago, Bigelow, owner of the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, announced his intention to get into the space race. Not many people paid attention, or gave him much of a chance. But 16 months from now, Bigelow's first creation is scheduled for blast-off into a low orbit above the earth. If it works as planned, the development of space will never be the same.

If Robert Bigelow, the owner of the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, feels strongly about something, he goes for it. When the reclusive multimillionaire decided that he didn’t care much for increased business taxes in his home city of Las Vegas, he forked out for full-page advertisements in local newspapers to say so. Now he’s predicting that space tourism and commerce will take off, and is backing his hunch with cash.

Making "space available" is at the heart of the global travel, tourist and lodging industry. That business axiom is no stranger to Robert Bigelow, owner of the Budget Suites of America Hotel Chain. But now the North Las Vegas, Nevada-based Bigelow is putting his money down on inflatable Earth orbiting modules. He’s intent on attracting not only high-flying sightseers, but those hungering to crank out made-in-space products and evaluate microgravity processes. Bigelow’s plan is to establish a habitable commercial space station for research, manufacturing, entertainment and other uses.

Bigelow Aerospace, an American company developing inflatable orbital habitats, has signed a contract for six launches on a Russian Dnepr booster, Russian news services reported this week. According to the RIA Novosti news agency, Bigelow and Kosmotras, the company that markets the Dnepr, signed a contract at the Berlin Air Show this week for six Dnepr launches carrying what the report described only as "civilian satellites."

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) announced this week the first sale of its medium-lift Falcon 5 launch vehicle. Company founder and CEO Elon Musk said that SpaceX has sold the first Falcon 5 launch to Bigelow Aerospace, a company developing inflatable structures that could be used as commercial orbital habitats. The payload, identified in a SPACE.com report as Genesis Pathfinder, is designed to test inflatable modules based on technology developed for NASA's TransHab, a project the agency supported for several years before canceling. The launch is currently scheduled for November 2005 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Another client is Bigelow Aerospace, a Nevada-based company that has an office here in Bethesda that I share space with. It was founded by Robert Bigelow, a very wealthy man, who made his money in the real estate construction business in Las Vegas. He also had the space bug early in life ... in his case, he was much smarter than I was. He decided to make a lot of money before he pursued his dream. In the latter part of the '90s he did due diligence on a number of satellite and rocket companies. Ultimately he became enamored with a program at Johnson Space Center called Trans Hab that involved developing inflatable or expandable space modules. It means literally using fabric that could be expanded in space to build very low cost, high-integrity modules for housing research laboratories, space hotels, habitats on other planetary surfaces.

An artist’s rendering of an inflatable habitat derived from the Autonomous Cargo Vehicle for use in space, lunar or other planetary surface applications. Its inflatable section is pressurized once at its destination to enhance crew habitability and operations. Since NASA was established more than 40 years ago, The Boeing Company has played a unique role in pioneering mankind’s forward march into space. From the Apollo moon triumph, through the technological wonders of the Space Shuttle and the Space Station, Boeing has been NASA’s leading contractor on virtually every human space flight system. With the President’s bold space vision, we are again looking outward toward the moon and beyond to Mars.

As the space industry continues to cut costs by using lightweight materials and alternative types of energy, it is opening up the possibility that you and I may one day have the opportunity to live in space. The idea of a colony on the moon or Mars might be made possible with new spacecraft technologies being developed today. Inflatable space telescopes will be much lighter than their glass and metal predecessors, making them cheaper to put into orbit. (NASA) One of the remaining barriers to affordable space travel or even placing spacecraft in orbit is still the high price of launching these spacecraft. At today's prices, it would cost $12,500 just to launch an object as light as an inflated basketball (1.25 pounds) into space. The heavier the spacecraft, the more rocket fuel is needed to get the vehicle off the ground. NASA and other space agencies are working on constructing a new breed of inflatable spacecraft made of lightweight materials.

It may be seen as the commercial parallel to Neil Armstrong's "one small step". Still others view it as breaking the NASA monopoly on human spaceflight.

NASA's Johnson Space Center will offer the public a behind-the-scenes look at its human-exploration activities on Saturday, including activities to build and operate the new international space station.

Last December TransHab was inflated for the first time. In a control room overlooking a giant vacuum chamber at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, a dozen engineers sat patiently, trading jokes and sci-fi movie trivia, while NASA technicians meticulously adjusted temperature and pressure valves, and the three-story, $200 million house designed for the first Mars colonists slowly took shape.

After Apollo, (which, let's face it, was really a case of international missile envy) NASA's relevance seemed in question: After a worldwide triumph on the moon, was it destined to launch robot probes for the rest of the century?