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The Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne suborbital vehicle that will attempt this week and next to twice rocket above 100 km. to claim the $10-million Ansari X-Prize highlights a major new wave of commercial space activity taking stride into early October.

The initiatives include the planned announcement this week of a new, much larger $50-million "America's Space Prize" to spur private development of an orbital space transport that by 2010 could carry 5-7 astronauts to an orbiting station.

The new America's Space Prize is being initiated by millionaire developer Robert T. Bigelow who wants a low-cost manned transport to take crews to Bigelow Aerospace inflatable space modules under development in North Las Vegas, Nev. (see cover and p. 54).

Until recently, individual commercial space "wannabes" struggled for technical competence and respectability.

But a more business-like approach by commercial space company managers coupled with their innovative use of technology is enabling them to capture bigger government contracts, such as the $42 million just awarded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) for quick reaction launch developments.

The new commercial companies are also increasingly "breaking down the hidebound bureaucracies" of NASA and the larger aerospace companies, says Courtney Stadd, NASA's former chief of staff. He says commercial space is beginning to do this with a more diverse, and increasingly capable base of dynamic new companies, staffed with younger engineers more representative of the future than the past.

They are forming in effect "a new national incubator for technology and talent" that aerospace industry can draw upon for major innovation, says Stadd, who has long been affiliated with commercial space start-ups.

Private/commerical ventures like SpaceShipOne carry an inherent high-risk of failure, including the risk of a fatal accident. But the new commericial space industry is far more steeled to accept and recover from failure than it was earlier, Stadd said.

Several new commercial space milestones have just occurred or will occur by early October. They include: