Although there have been many downers this decade, including the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia and its crew in 2003, this decade has had many bright spots. The idea for this blog entry came from TDR's Tales of the Heliosphere blog. This decade started with the tourist flights of Dennis Tito and a few other tourists to the ISS. Then Burt Rutan has won the X-Prize in 2004. Bigelow also launched a one-third model inflatable space station into orbit, being the first non-governmental entity to do so. And just recently, NASA signed two private companies to develop orbital spacecraft to help supply ISS. So things are really looking up.
Just one more thought: Any ship that can supply the ISS should be able to supply Bigelow's space station. But of course, they wouldn't win Bigelow's prize.
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