September 5, 2007 1:09 PM PDT
Due to the absence of launch facilities in the United States, one of the early pioneers of commercial space exploration, Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, sees the lack of launch facilities as one of the major obstacles to the commercialization of space. His company was forced to travel to Russia to successfully launch its Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 satellites. Bigelow's satellites are an early
phase of the company's plan to build a space station, or space hotel, to shuttle passengers back and forth for an ultra-luxury vacation.
As you can see, the Russians are putting former ICBM silos to a much better use than originally intended.
Photo by Bigelow Aerospace
