From a Wall Street Journal / Barron's article (subscription required) about SpaceX is an interesting tidbit about one of their future customers:
Sometime this fall, Musk reports, the company will launch its first Falcon I rocket from Vandenberg Air Force base in California, carrying with it a U.S. Department of Defense communications satellite. Assuming that flight goes without a hitch, the second one will come in 2005, with the launch of a natural-disaster-monitoring satellite for the government of Malaysia. And Musk says a company called Bigelow Aerospace has booked passage on the first flight of the second generation SpaceX rocket, known as the Falcon V. That one, also expected in 2005, will carry a one-third scale model of Bigelow's planned inflatable space station. Really.
Bigelow Aerospace, if memory serves, is a company owned by hotel magnate Robert T. Bigelow, who owns the "Budget Suites of America Hotel Chain" that's looking to get into the space tourism business in a big way. All very interesting.
Posted by Tom Nugent at June 15, 2004 09:14 PM