The Commercial Space Race Heats Up

DragonLab In Orbit. Courtesy: SpaceX

Although the Augustine Commission did not offer up “recommendations” – it is clear they want NASA to focus on moving beyond low earth orbit – creating some space – if you will – for entrepreneurs to boldly go where only the government has gone before.

The man in the vanguard of this push is one Elon Musk – the PayPal multimillionaire – who now heads SpaceX. The California company won the NASA contract to build rockets that will deliver cargo to the International Space Station – but Musk hopes to do more than that – one day offering a ride to orbit for human beings.

SpaceX plans to test its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule in early in 2010.

Former NASA astronaut Ken Bowersox is working on safety issues for SpaceX.  Watch below, or read the transcript of my interview with him.