/sci/ - Science & Math

Blue Origin from Washington state is testing a space capsule which they would offer to foreign governments and private interests. Blue Origin is funded by Amazon.coms CEO and has received funding from NASA.

Orbital Sciences from Virginia is already an established space company. They have been launching military satellites for many years, but they will soon be rolling out a commercial space craft called the Cygnus. It can deliver cargo into orbit, and possibly space tourists at a later time.

SpaceX from California is on schedule to be the first company in the US to offer a fully orbital launch system, as well as reusable launch vehicles. They have designed their own rockets and space capsules. Their first test launch out of cape Canaveral was flawless, and their second launch of the Falcon 9 is set for this coming Tuesday, December 7th.
The most interesting thing about SpaceX is that they have managed to cut their operating costs so much that even the dependable Russian rockets will have trouble competing with it.

Elon Musk has guaranteed that he can build a super heavy lift vehicle and launch for $300 million a pop. This is in contrast to the Ares V Boeing was designing for NASA, which would have cost $1+ billion per flight. This thing would be quite capable of sending cargo to the moon or even mars.

Most of these will run out of Spaceport America in New Mexico, but for the moment they are conducting much of their testing at the Mojave Spaceport.

>pic also related. It is an inflatable space module from Bigelow, in space!.