High above our beloved aquatic globe, on the shore of the cosmic ocean, a winged spaceship approaches a giant space station pirouetting in the darkness. This ship's pilots use flat-screen computer displays to match their rotation to that of the enormous orbital outpost. As the shuttle turns, the logo of the world's largest airline appears, emblazoned on one side. This is not the present, but must have been the past. A scene from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey was praised at the time for its realistic depiction of a human future in space (*1). Now, ten years after this future failed to materialize, spaceflight is still a privilege reserved only for Earth's most powerful governments. There has been no successful attempt to change this fact; To date, no human being who has not hitched a ride to a national space organization has ever orbited the planet. There's a laundry list of reasons why this is the case, but mostly it comes down to cost. The monetary price associated with spaceflight is so high that for decades the only organizations willing to take the plunge were powerful governments with money to spend and political balloons to soar (*2). In fact, only three governments in the world have ever launched a man into space, and only two of those three, Russia and China, still maintain that capability. In early 2006, however, for the first time, with the announcement of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, the private sector turned its eyes to space. Working hand in hand, the American government and private enterprise have begun trying to dramatically reduce the cost of putting a human into low Earth orbit (LEO) and beyond... half of the paper... .Lcsun- news.com. Las Cruces Sun. Network. October 24, 2011.(9) “Bigelow's Second Orbital Module Launches into Space.” Space.com. Space.com. Web.June 28, 2008.(10) “Space taxi delays spur layoffs in Bigelow aerospace industry.” Reuters.com. Reuters. Web.October 20, 2011.(11)“NASA budget plan saves telescope, cuts space taxis.” Reuters.com. Reuters. Web.16 November 2011(12)“Doubts on display in Washington; Will Congress abandon private space?” Popularmechanics.com. Popular mechanics. Network. October 26, 2011.(13) “Space Transportation Costs: Price Per Pound in Orbit Trends 1990-2000.” Futron.com. FUTRON Corporation. Network. 6 September 2001. (14) “Serious errors in cost estimates for the development and operation of direct shuttle-derived heavy lift systems.” NASA.gov. NASA. Network. 2 September. 2009.