Mark Greenberg / Virgin Galactic

A bearded Richard Branson (center) gets a congratulatory hug from SpaceShipTwo designer Burt Rutan. Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Mark Sirangelo, who was involved in the development of SpaceShipTwo's hybrid rocket engine, can be seen just to the right of Rutan.

British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin companies operate airplanes and trains, sell music and phones, offer games and radio shows. He's an adventurer who has flown balloons over oceans, has swum with sharks and whales, and has even started up his own ocean exploration venture. He's had his own reality-TV series and played cameo roles in "Around the World in 80 Days," "Casino Royale" and "Superman Returns." But what really gets the 62-year-old's juices flowing is outer space: Even in a Virgin Mobile TV commercial, Branson's dream of going weightless serves as the kicker.

So it's debatable whether anyone was happier than Branson to see Monday's first blastoff by SpaceShipTwo, the rocket plane that he hopes will take hundreds of regular people (with $200,000 to spend) on quick suborbital trips into outer space. Over the past eight and a half years, Branson has spent tens of millions of dollars to get his Virgin Galactic venture this far, and if the tests continue to go smoothly, he and his kids may soon be getting on the space plane themselves.

Exactly when will that be? Branson's predictions have been uniformly over-optimistic: 2007? 2008? 2012? 2013? Now he says commercial service will start next year. The fact that the future time frame is shrinking suggests that Branson is getting closer to being right. In a quick Q&A, the rebel billionaire talked about the "very long road" behind him and the road that lies ahead:

Cosmic Log: You've talked about how you and your family are looking forward to this. After today's launch, are you looking forward to it even more?

Richard Branson: Of course. It was a thrilling day today. Everything went absolutely according to plan. It looked magnificent. The pilots just loved the experience. I think they were tempted to go straight into space, but knew they'd get fired if they did. We're very much looking forward to getting there either at the end of this year or very early next year.

Mark Greenberg / Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic's billionaire backer, Richard Branson, gets a "high-ten" hand-slap from SpaceShipTwo pilot Mark Stucky. George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic's CEO and president, is to Branson's right.

Q: What has this effort meant to you? I don't know if people could have predicted that it would take eight and a half years to get to this point after SpaceShipOne. Has this been a longer road than you thought it would be? Does that make it taste sweeter when things go right?

A: Yes, it's been a very long road. But as far as putting people into space, Virgin Galactic is the only company that has gotten this far. Quite a few other companies have also been working hard to get this far. Today was such an important milestone, in that we knew the rockets were finally working. We knew the spaceship worked on its own. But we obviously needed to test the two together to make sure that the designers got it right. We're absolutely delighted that it broke the sound barrier on its very first flight, and that everything went so smoothly. So we really are on the way now. We've overcome the biggest hurdle, and there are no major hurdles left except for the normal test flights that are needed before we go into space.

Q: How many test flights do you think will be needed? You've already mentioned that you are hoping the first spaceflights could happen by the end of this year, and commercial service would follow. Now that the first powered test has taken place, what does the schedule ahead look like?

A: There will be many test flights between now and the end of the year, before we actually go into space. We'll do as many tests as we feel are necessary before we actually turn it over to myself, my children and other people. We'll be working with the FAA and others to get as many flights under our belts as we feel are needed, but I do think we'll be ready by the end of the year. 

Q: When you saw SpaceShipTwo fire up its engine, were there any surprises, or was it totally the way you expected it to go. Did you ever think to yourself, "Whoa, I didn't think it was going to work that way"?

A: Fortunately, there were no surprises. Until it happens, you have to be nervous, even though you have the best team in the world working with it. What was incredible was how clear it was, just looking up without binoculars. You could visibly see the spaceship getting faster and faster. There's an old saying, "It's not rocket science." But this is rocket science, and that's why it's taken eight and a half years to get this far.

Q: You have more than 500 people who have already put money down for a flight, and many more who are interested in the idea of flying into outer space. What would you say to them about the significance of today's test, and what they can expect in the years ahead?

A: Today was the most significant day in the program. I think that for those people who have been good enough to stick with us for the last eight years, who signed up early on, their time to become astronauts is very soon now. I'd just say, 'Thank you very much for sticking with it.' We'll soon be able to make their dreams come true.

More reactions to the SpaceShipTwo test:

• Charles Lurio, writer of The Lurio Report on private space development: “It’s been a long eight and a half years, but this is the kind of thing that happens in development programs.”
• Commercial Spaceflight Federation: "We are one step closer to achieving safe, routine and cost-effective access to space that will create abundant opportunities for space-based research and that will inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists."
• House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.: SpaceShipTwo's supersonic flight is a "major milestone in commercial space travel, bringing us one step closer to offering private commercial space travel and solidifying the Mojave Air and Space Port as our nation’s premier aerospace research, development and test flight center for this emerging space industry."
• Spaceport America: "Today's successful powered flight means we are getting closer to the day when the first Virgin Galactic passenger flight will be taking place from Spaceport America in New Mexico."

More about SpaceShipTwo:

• SpaceShipTwo goes supersonic
• Tom Cruise might be up for space
• Cosmic Log archive on SpaceShipTwo

Slideshow: The making of SpaceShipTwo

Click through scenes from the construction of Virgin Galactic's suborbital passenger spaceship.

Launch slideshow

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log and the rest of NBCNews.com's science and space coverage, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane lit up its engine for the first time in flight on Monday, taking a giant supersonic leap toward outer space.

The crucial 16-second blast took place at about 7:50 a.m. PT (10:50 a.m. ET), high above California's Mojave Air and Space Port. Virgin Group's billionaire founder, Richard Branson, was on hand to watch the proceedings.

"Today was the most significant day in the program," Branson told NBC News afterward. "I think that for those people who have been good enough to stick with us for the last eight years, who signed up early on, their time to become astronauts is very soon now. ... We'll soon be able to make their dreams come true."

Branson wasn't the only one watching: Rocket aficionados flocked to viewing areas near the airport to see the blastoff. Until Monday, Mojave-based Scaled Composites, which is building and testing the plane for Virgin Galactic's eventual use, had tested SpaceShipTwo only by dropping it from its WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane and having its pilots guide the plane back through unpowered glides back to the runway. The engine, powered by a rubber-based solid fuel and nitrous oxide, had been fired only on the ground.

Monday's test was radically different: WhiteKnightTwo released SpaceShipTwo from its traditional drop zone, at an altitude of around 47,000 feet. But after the rocket plane glides clear from the mothership, its pilot lit up the engine and pointed SpaceShipTwo upward into the sky, reaching a maximum height of 56,200 feet. The plane coasted back to a landing back at the Mojave airport, about 13 minutes after blastoff.

Test pilots Mark Stucky and Mike Alsbury were at SpaceShipTwo's controls for Monday's flight, Virgin Galactic said. Afterward, the company said in a tweet that the pilots confirmed "SpaceShipTwo exceeded the speed of sound on today's flight!" The reported maximum velocity was Mach 1.2.

Virgin

SpaceShipTwo fires up its rocket engine for the first time in flight on Monday.

MarsScientific.com / Clay Center Observatory

A 16-second rocket blast sends SpaceShipTwo toward the heavens.

Virgin Galactic via W. Christine Choi

A boom camera on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo plane shows the rocket engine firing.

George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic's president and CEO, said in a news release that the flight test "went as planned, with the expected burn duration, good engine performance and solid vehicle handling qualities throughout."

Eventually, SpaceShipTwo could break the space barrier as well as the sound barrier — just as its predecessor, SpaceShipOne, did in 2004. When the single-piloted SpaceShipOne made repeated flights beyond an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles), which is the internationally accepted boundary of outer space, it won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight. Ever since then, Virgin Galactic has been funding the multimillion-dollar development effort to create a fleet of passenger space planes.

In the grand scheme of things, suborbital spaceflight isn't exactly new: The U.S. Air Force's X-15 rocket plane blazed that trail to manned spaceflight a half-century ago. The new twist is that it's being done by private companies rather than government programs. 

Scaled and Virgin Galactic have mapped out a series of flight tests that would gradually push the envelope, potentially leading to suborbital spaceflights over California's Mojave Desert by the end of this year. Virgin Galactic's goal is to begin passenger service, for tourists as well as researchers, at New Mexico's Spaceport America as early as next year. More than 500 people — including celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher — have already put down money for a $200,000 ride.

The six-passenger, two-pilot plane is designed to give riders a commanding view of the curving Earth beneath the black sky of space, a few minutes of free-floating weightlessness, and a roller coaster ride back down to Virgin Galactic's spaceport. Other companies — including XCOR Aerospace and Blue Origin — are planning to get into the suborbital space passenger business as well, but if SpaceShipTwo's flight tests go well, Virgin Galactic is likely to become the market leader.

Branson has said he and his family would be among the first to fill SpaceShipTwo's passenger seats.

"Like our hundreds of customers from around the world, my children and I cannot wait to get on board this fantastic vehicle for our own trip to space and am delighted that today's milestone brings that day much closer," he wrote in a blog post.

Slideshow: The making of SpaceShipTwo

Click through scenes from the construction of Virgin Galactic's suborbital passenger spaceship.

Launch slideshow

More about SpaceShipTwo:

• Virgin billionaire can't wait for space ride
• Tom Cruise might be up for space
• Cosmic Log archive on SpaceShipTwo

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log and the rest of NBCNews.com's science and space coverage, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

This story was originally published on Mon Apr 29, 2013 10:29 AM EDT

MarsScientific.com / Clay Center Observatory

Cold oxidizer streams from the back of SpaceShipTwo's engine during an unpowered test flight on April 12. Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Galactic, says the rocket plane could go supersonic when its engine is lit up for the first time in flight, as early as Monday.

Virgin Galactic's billionaire founder, Richard Branson, says his company is planning to fire up SpaceShipTwo's rocket engine for the first time in flight on Monday — a "historic" blast that is expected to send the space plane supersonic.

"We're hoping to break the sound barrier," Branson told the Las Vegas Sun. "That's planned Monday. It will be a historic day. This is going to be Virgin Galactic's year. We'll break the sound barrier Monday, and from there, we build up through the rest of the year, finally going into space near the end of the year. I'll be on the first official flight, which we look to have in the first quarter of next year. We're doing a number of test flights into space first."

Branson made his comments on Monday during a visit to kick off Virgin America's airline service to Las Vegas. In just one paragraph, the British entrepreneur and adventurer capped off weeks of rumors and laid out a new timeline for starting up passenger flights to outer space.

SpaceShipTwo builds on the heritage of SpaceShipOne, which powered its pilots beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) altitude mark in 2004 to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private-sector spaceflight. SpaceShipOne is now hanging in the Smithsonian, but SpaceShipTwo has been under development for years at Scaled Composites in Mojave, Calif. Scaled has been conducting a series of unpowered tests at the Mojave Air and Space Port. During an April 12 "cold flow" flight test, Scaled's pilots rehearsed every step for a powered flight, short of lighting up the hybrid rocket engine.

So far, SpaceShipTwo has been attached to the belly of its WhiteKnightTwo mothership, carried up to altitudes of around 50,000 feet and then dropped into the air to make a glider-like landing. During powered tests, SpaceShipTwo's engine will be lit up after the drop. The rocket plane will make a spectacular blast into the heavens and then glide back to the runway.

"We’ve experienced about a year’s worth of vertical flight tests and captive-carry flight tests by a number of tenants, and now we’re entering the phase of manned research flights," Stuart Witt, CEO of the Mojave Air and Space Port, told NBC News. "We’re excited about that: The industry has been waiting for this for a long time – since 2004."

Virgin Galactic's CEO and president, George Whitesides, stressed that the test schedule was dependent on several factors, including the weather. He said the first rocket-powered test could easily slip to a later time.

Like Branson, Whitesides said the first powered flight, known as PF01, would be merely the first step in the next phase of testing. "PF01 will be the start of a series of increasingly longer-duration burns (PF02, PF03, etc.) that should lead us to space altitude before the end of the year and commercial ops start soon after that," he said in an email to NBC News.

Virgin Galactic plans to conduct commercial spaceflights from Spaceport America in New Mexico, with passengers charged $200,000 for a ride. More than 500 customers have already put money down for flights. The passengers would experience breathtaking views of the curving Earth beneath the black sky of space, go weightless for a few minutes and then strap themselves back in for a powerful plunge back to the runway.

The first supersonic flight of a new spaceship isn't always auspicious: When SpaceShipOne came in for a landing in Mojave after breaking the sound barrier for the first time on Dec. 17, 2003, its left landing gear collapsed and the plane ran off the runway. Fortunately, no major damage was done, and pilot Brian Binnie was unhurt. Binnie went on to fly SpaceShipOne into space on Oct. 4, 2004, to win the $10 million prize.

Blue Origin, a rocket venture backed by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos, put its prototype spacecraft through its first unmanned supersonic flight at a Texas rocket range in August 2011 — but the company said the craft had to be destroyed when it experienced a "flight instability" at an altitude of 45,000 feet. Blue Origin recovered from that setback and is continuing to work on suborbital as well as orbital spacecraft.

Slideshow: The making of SpaceShipTwo

Click through scenes from the construction of Virgin Galactic's suborbital passenger spaceship.

Launch slideshow

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email inbox every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Bigelow Aerospace / NBCNews.com

A mockup created by Bigelow Aerospace shows a moon base with inflatable modules.

Bigelow Aerospace and NASA say they've agreed to look at ways for private ventures to contribute to human exploration missions, perhaps including construction of a moon base. But the space agency emphasized that it's keeping its own focus squarely on corraling an asteroid and then going to Mars.

"As part of our broader commercial space strategy, NASA signed a Space Act Agreement with Bigelow Aerospace to foster ideas about how the private sector can contribute to future human missions," David Weaver, the space agency's associate administrator for communications, said in a statement emailed to NBC News.

"This will provide important information on possible ways to expand our exploration capabilities in partnership with the private sector," Weaver said. "The agency is intensely focused on a bold mission to identify, relocate and explore an asteroid with American astronauts by 2025 — all as we prepare for an even more ambitious human mission to Mars in the 2030s. NASA has no plans for a human mission to the moon."

Eyes on the moon
The moon, however, ranks high among the targets that Bigelow Aerospace has in mind. The Nevada-based company has been working on moonbase concepts for years. During a recent interview on the "Coast to Coast AM" radio show, billionaire founder Robert Bigelow said the potential objectives for private-sector space efforts include a lunar base as well as space stations or refueling depots placed at gravitational balance points in the Earth-moon system.

"We're making no bones about it, that's what we're out to try to accomplish," Bigelow said.

Mike Gold, a Washington-based spokesman for Bigelow Aerospace, explained that his company wanted to help "commercial space achieve escape velocity from LEO," or low Earth orbit.

Gold said the NASA-Bigelow agreement would build on the work done by SpaceX, Orbital Sciences Corp. and other companies to build new spaceships for trips to the International Space Station. "What this is doing is projecting that forward, and exploring what commercial companies can do both to lower the cost of beyond-LEO operations, and to create enhanced capabilities," he said.

The agreement with NASA calls upon Bigelow Aerospace to lay out the potential contributions to exploration beyond Earth orbit. "First, we'll be identifying what the companies and technologies are that could contribute, and then we'll be examining what some of those specific mission scenarios might be," Gold said. During the "Coast to Coast AM" interview, Robert Bigelow said the first phase of the study would take 100 days, and the second phase would take 120 days.

No money is changing hands under the agreement, which Gold said was signed in late March. The recommendations coming from the study could include potential opportunities for NASA to buy or lease facilities from private space ventures.

Earlier this month, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said that the space agency would not "take the lead on a human lunar mission." However, Bolden did not rule out the possibility that NASA might play a role in missions led by other countries or private ventures.

Future space stations
Bigelow Aerospace made its mark in low Earth orbit in 2006 and 2007 when it sent two inflatable space modules into orbit aboard Russian launch vehicles. Those space station prototypes, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, are still in orbit. In January, Bigelow Aerospace and NASA struck a deal to deliver a larger inflatable module, known as the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module or BEAM, to the International Space Station in 2015 on a SpaceX resupply flight.

Eventually, Bigelow plans to put a separate commercial space station in orbit, assembled from two even larger inflatable modules. Each of these BA330 modules would have a habitable volume of 330 cubic meters, and putting two of them together would create an "Alpha Station" for a maximum crew of 12. Gold said that the company was continuing to discuss the concept with international space agencies and corporations, but he emphasized that the venture depended on having regular commercial flights to orbit.

A key development would be the production of commercial spaceships capable of transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station, Gold said. NASA has said such spaceships should be flying by 2017.

"The BA330 will be ready prior to commercial crew, so that’s roughly the timeframe were looking at," Gold said, "and we're ready to take on customers now."

More about Bigelow Aerospace:

• SpaceX teams up with Bigelow for marketing
• Bigelow worries about China's moon ambitions
• Inside Bigelow's space station deal with NASA

Tip o' the Log to New Space Journal and Space News.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Steve Helber / AP

Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket vents fuel as it sits on its Virginia launch pad.

Orbital Sciences Corp. is postponing the maiden launch of its two-stage Antares rocket until Saturday at the earliest, due to an unfavorable weather forecast for Friday.

The Antares rocket was originally due to blast off Thursday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Va., and go on an orbital test flight in preparation for cargo trips to the International Space Station. That first launch attempt was aborted with 12 minutes to go in the countdown, because an umbilical data cable was unplugged prematurely from the rocket's upper stage.

Orbital determined that the cable was pulled out because of a "slight hydraulic movement" of a launch pad structure. The company also said there wasn't enough slack in the cable. "Neither issue alone would have caused the umbilical disconnect, however, the combination resulted in the anomaly," Orbital said in a mission update on Thursday. Small adjustments were made to the launch pad equipment to fix the problem, and the launch team started making preparations for liftoff on Friday.

Later Thursday, Orbital said weather conditions at the Virginia pad were expected to deteriorate on Friday and then improve significantly. The launch team decided to wait out Friday's weather and aim for launch at 5 p.m. ET Saturday. Sunday would serve as a backup launch opportunity.

The Antares is due to launch a dummy payload into orbit as a rehearsal for future flights that would send robotic Cygnus cargo carriers to the space station. If Orbital's test flights are successful, the Virginia-based company could begin cargo runs under the terms of an eight-mission, $1.9 billion resupply contract with NASA. California-based SpaceX is already flying its Dragon cargo capsules to and from the space station under a separate 12-mission, $1.6 billion contract.

NASA struck deals with Orbital and SpaceX to provide U.S.-based cargo transfer capability in the wake of the space shuttle fleet's retirement in 2011. The space agency is also working with SpaceX and two other companies, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp., to develop crew-capable spaceships for space station trips. Yet another NASA program is aimed at creating a new heavy-lift rocket and Orion crew vehicle for journeys beyond low Earth orbit.

More about the Antares rocket:

• Five things you didn't know about Antares
• Watch as Antares rises into orbit

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Steve Helber / AP

The Antares rocket is illuminated by lights on Tuesday night, waiting for launch from a Virginia spaceport.

Orbital Sciences Corp. postponed the maiden launch of its Antares rocket on Wednesday when an umbilical data cable was disconnected prematurely from the launch vehicle's second stage.

The launch abort came at about 4:48 p.m. ET, just minutes before the Antares was due to lift off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Va. Orbital said the 5 p.m. ET liftoff would be rescheduled for Friday at the earliest.

"We are still examining all of the data, but it appears that the issue is fairly straightforward," Frank Culbertson, Orbital’s executive vice president and mission director for the Antares test flight, said in a company statement. "With this being the first launch of the new system from a new launch facility we have taken prudent steps to ensure a safe and successful outcome. Today, our scrub procedures were exercised and worked as planned.  We are looking forward to a successful launch on Friday."

Imagery posted to the independent NASASpaceFlight.com website showed a tower on the launch pad twisting in a motion that could have dislodged the data cord from its connector.

Orbital is giving the Antares rocket its first in-flight test in preparation for trips to the International Space Station later this year. This time around, the rocket is carrying merely a dummy payload, along with some secondary satellites that are to be deployed in orbit. But if the practice run is successful, Orbital could start providing a second line of made-in-the-USA commercial vehicles for resupplying the space station.

The Virginia-based company is following in the footsteps of California-based SpaceX, which began cargo runs to the space station last year.

Orbital and SpaceX have received hundreds of millions of dollars from NASA to develop their transports, as part of the space agency's strategy to replace the space shuttle fleet. The shuttles were retired in 2011 to make way for a new generation of spaceships capable of going beyond Earth orbit. NASA wants private companies to take over the role of getting cargo — and eventually astronauts as well — to low Earth orbit.

Orbital won NASA's contract for the Antares rocket and the Cygnus cargo capsule in 2008.

A simulated Cygnus payload is to be lofted into orbit during a 10-minute ascent, and is expected to remain in orbit for several weeks before plunging to its fiery doom in Earth's atmosphere. Four tiny satellites are to be deployed from the simulator, including three smartphone-equipped PhoneSats for NASA (Alexander, Graham, and Bell) and the commercial Dove-1 remote-sensing nanosatellite. The main point of the mission, however, is to check whether Antares is ready to send cargo to the space station.

"This is a big event for the Eastern Shore, for Wallops and for everybody in the surrounding area, but also, I think, for the country," Frank Culbertson, executive vice president and general manager of Orbital's Advanced Program Group, said during Tuesday's pre-launch briefing.

He cautioned journalists not to expect a perfect test flight. "That first word is 'test,' so if things don't go exactly as planned, we will learn what we need to learn and press on," he said.

If the test is successful, another Antares is due to send a real Cygnus capsule to the space station as early as this June. And if that demonstration flight succeeds, Orbital could proceed with a series of eight resupply flights to the station under the terms of a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. SpaceX is already two flights into its own 12-mission, $1.6 billion resupply contract.

Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spaceflight development, said Orbital would play an important role in providing "assured cargo access" to the space station. The idea is that if SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule are grounded for technical reasons, Orbital's Antares and Cygnus would serve as a backup — and vice versa. That wasn't the case during the space shuttle program, when NASA's only Plan B was to rely on other countries' spaceships.

"We are in such a better situation today, and [it's] about to be even better with the debut of this new capability," McAlister said.

NASA is following a similar approach for the development of U.S.-made spaceships for crew transport. Three companies — SpaceX, the Boeing Co. and Sierra Nevada Corp. — are splitting more than a billion dollars of NASA's money during the current phase of work. NASA expects commercial crew transports to start flying to the space station by 2017. 

Correction for 6:55 p.m. ET April 17: I've cleaned up a couple of errors, including the date when Orbital won NASA's nod in the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program (2008, not 2007) and the SpaceX contract amount under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program ($1.6 billion, not $1.6 million).

More about the Antares rocket:

• Five things you didn't know about Antares
• Watch as Antares rises into orbit

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Planetary Resources

An artist's conception shows how solar energy could be used to process material on a near-Earth asteroid.

Experts on near-Earth objects wondered whether February's meteor blast over Russia would serve as a wakeup call about asteroids — and two months later, there's ample evidence that it has. But there are two sides to that wakeup call, having to do with potential opportunities as well as potential threats.

Nothing illustrates that better than this week's developments: In Flagstaff, Ariz., researchers are discussing ways to detect, track and head off space rocks that could wreak destruction on Earth. In Pasadena, Calif., NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that an infrared sensor for tracking asteroids and comets has passed a critical design test. And in Bellevue, Wash., the Planetary Resources space mining venture says it's partnering with the Bechtel construction company on future efforts to mine asteroids for raw materials.

"Bechtel has a history of consistently tackling the most challenging projects, beginning with the construction of the Hoover Dam more than 75 years ago," Peter Diamandis, the co-founder and co-chairman of Planetary Resources, said in a news release announcing the deal. Today, California-based Bechtel is one of the world's leaders in the engineering, procurement and construction industry. It will join Planetary Resources' billionaire-heavy list of investors — and assist the company in its long-term mission to mine near-Earth asteroids for precious metals and outer-space water.

Diamandis and his fellow co-founder, Eric Anderson, have said asteroid mining could turn into a multitrillion-dollar industry if their vision becomes reality.

"Planetary Resources' mission is ambitious, but they've assembled a world-class team to succeed," Riley Bechtel, the chairman and CEO of Bechtel, said in the news release. "Our companies share a common vision to continually innovate and push boundaries, all aimed at contributing a better quality of life."

Speaking of life, Planetary Resources' president, Chris Lewicki, is among the scores of experts attending this week's Planetary Defense Conference in Flagstaff. "It's always an extremely fun and informative conference, as it focuses entirely on asteroids ... how often do you get to consider defending the Earth from space rocks?" he wrote in a blog posting on Tuesday.

NASA's proposed mission to grab an asteroid and park it near the moon by 2021 has been one of the meeting's major topics, but the gathering also provided the latest information on the threats posed by near-Earth objects, and what to do about them:

• Experts estimate that there are 9 million near-Earth asteroids as large as the 17-meter-wide (55-foot-wide) space rock that broke apart over Russia on Feb. 15, and virtually all of them are too small to track using current observational tools. So far, detection systems have found less than 1 percent of the asteroids smaller than 100 meters (which is big enough to wipe out a city).
• Lewicki passed along word of a scientific study suggesting that even "rubble-pile" asteroids can become more cohesive over time, thanks to the forces that bind together the smallest grains in their size distrbutions.
• Several schemes for fending off dangerous asteroids were presented — including plans to deflect them with impact vehicles, divert them or blast them to smithereens with nuclear bombs, or guide them gently into non-threatening orbits using gravity tractors.

JPL's Shyam Bhaskaran described an "AutoNav" system that could guide an impactor autonomously to hit an asteroid target at speeds of up to 30,000 mph. "It's not that easy," Bhaskaran said in a news release. "Hitting an asteroid with a spacecraft traveling at hypervelocity is like shooting an arrow at a target on a speeding race car."

The conference began on Monday and runs through Friday. Check out the program, feast your eyes on the video coverage (with live streaming as well as archived clips for each session), and follow the action via Twitter with the hashtag #PDC2013.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / B612 Foundation

The artist's concepts for the NEOCam infrared telescope (left) and the Sentinel Space Telescope (right) look similar. Both are designed to scan the skies for near-Earth asteroids.

Infrared eyes
The first step in planetary defense is to find all those potentially threatening asteroids — and during the Flagstaff conference, the spotlight focused on two proposed space telescopes designed to look for space rocks. The B612 Foundation's Sentinel Space Telescope, currently scheduled for launch in 2017 or 2018, would use an infrared sensor to look for Earth-threatening asteroids from a Venus-type orbit. Ball Aerospace reportedly has 25 people working on the Sentinel project, and so far, B612 has raised $2 million of the mission's estimated $450 million cost.

Meanwhile, JPL is working on the components for a future space mission known as NEOCam. Like Sentinel, NEOCam would scan the skies from an outer-space vantage point, looking for the infrared glow of asteroids. The mission is getting technology development funds from NASA's Discovery Program — and on Monday, JPL said NEOCam's infrared sensor passed a design test that assessed its performance under simulated deep-space conditions. A research paper detailing the sensor's design and capabilities is to be published by the Journal of Optical Engineering.

"Infrared sensors are a powerful tool for discovering, cataloging and understanding the asteroid population," JPL researcher Amy Mainzer, a co-author of the paper, said in a news release. "When you observe a space rock with infrared, you are seeing its thermal emissions, which can better define the asteroid's size, as well as tell you something about composition."

Correction for 1:50 p.m. ET April 17: Good news, everyone! The Planetary Defense Conference runs through Friday. The bad news is that I originally wrote Wednesday instead, and that I wrote "#PDC2012" rather than #PDC2013 for the Twitter hashtag. Sorry about that!

More about asteroids:

• Asteroid miners get a boost from NASA
• NASA on asteroid threat: Pay now or pray later
• NBC News archive on asteroids

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 16, 2013 7:54 PM EDT

MarsScientific via Virgin Galactic

A trail of oxidizer streams behind the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane during Friday's gliding test flight.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane successfully glided through a test on Friday that sent oxidizer flowing through its engine — a sight that led observers to speculate that the suborbital spacecraft's first powered flight could be imminent.

SpaceShipTwo has been tested in the air for more than three years. Its hybrid rocket engine has undergone extensive development and testing, including multiple test firings on the ground. But the rocket has not yet been lit up in flight — and that's a crucial step in Virgin Galactic's plan to put tourists in outer space.

Based on rumblings coming from Mojave, Calif., where Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites have been testing the six-passenger plane, the first powered test flight could come on April 22. Virgin's British billionaire founder, Richard Branson, hinted that something big was coming in a weekend blog posting: "I look forward to seeing you all in Mojave soon," he wrote.

During Friday's test, Virgin Galactic's massive WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port, carrying SpaceShipTwo under its belly. The mothership rose to an altitude of about 50,000 feet, then released the rocket plane for a 10.8-minute-long gliding descent back to the runway. Mark Stucky and Mike Alsbury were the test pilots for what was characterized as a "mission rehearsal" for the first rocket-powered flight.

Virgin Galactic said SpaceShipOne successfully went through every step in preparation for that milestone flight, "apart from actually igniting the rocket."

"Importantly, and for the first time in the air, oxidizer was flowed through the propulsion system and out through the nozzle at the rear of the vehicle — thus successfully accomplishing the 'Cold-Flow' procedure," the company said in a news release. "As well as providing further qualifying evidence that the rocket system is flight-ready, the test also provided a stunning spectacle due to the oxidizer contrail, and for the first time gave a taste of what SpaceShipTwo will look like as it powers to space."

Slideshow: The making of SpaceShipTwo

Click through scenes from the construction of Virgin Galactic's suborbital passenger spaceship.

Launch slideshow

Virgin Galactic hasn't announced when the first powered flight would come. "We have to do a full review of the data before we finalize our next flight milestone, but we’re getting close now," the company's CEO and president, George T. Whitesides, was quoted as saying on the Space Coalition blog.

April 22 has been the focus of speculation because that would be the 69th birthday of the late millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who became the first person to make a nonstop solo flight around the world in 2005. That trip was financed by Branson, a friend and fellow flight enthusiast, and was accomplished with a Virgin GlobalFlyer airplane that looked like a lighter version of WhiteKnightTwo.

"Flying the space plane under power on his birthday would be a poignant tribute to Fossett, who died in a plane crash in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains two years after making his solo around-the-world flight," Parabolic Arc's Doug Messier wrote. Citing personal sources, independent consultant Charles Lurio also said April 22 was a target date.

The first powered flight would represent the biggest step yet in SpaceShipTwo's development effort, which builds upon the history-making suborbital space missions that were flown by the SpaceShipOne rocket plane in 2004. Virgin Galactic's plan calls for an increasingly ambitious series of flights from Mojave that will eventually take SpaceShipTwo's test pilots beyond 100 kilometers (62 miles) in altitude, which is the internationally accepted boundary of outer space.

As soon as next year, paying passengers may get their turn to climb aboard SpaceShipTwo at Spaceport America in New Mexico. The aerial launch from WhiteKnightTwo would lift them up to take a look at the curving Earth and the black sky of space. There'd be a few minutes of free-floating weightlessness at the top of the ride. Then SpaceShipTwo's innovative folding-wing design would slow down the supersonic plunge back toward Earth. The outer-space trip would end with a glide back to Spaceport America's 2-mile-long (3.2-kilometer-long) runway.

Virgin Galactic says more than 500 people have signed up for the $200,000 suborbital space tour.

More about SpaceShipTwo:

• Tom Cruise might be up for space
• What it's like to ride on SpaceShipTwo
• Cosmic Log archive on SpaceShipTwo

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log and the rest of NBCNews.com's science and space coverage, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Planetary Resources

An artist's concept shows Planetary Resources' Arkyd Interceptor spacecraft closing in on an asteroid.

Commercial ventures are planning to send out profit-hunting missions to asteroids by the year 2020 — but in the shorter term, they're bringing in money by developing technologies that may show up on NASA spacecraft before they're put to use commercially.

For example, NASA said this week that it would award up to $125,000 to Arkyd Astronautics for a software system that would allow spacecraft to maneuver autonomously in close proximity with near-Earth asteroids — or the International Space Station. "Companies like SpaceX and others providing commercial resupply services to the ISS, as well as vehicles like HTV and ATV, could benefit from the proposed software," Arkyd said in its proposal.

So who's behind Arkyd Astronautics? Arkyd is actually an old code name for the Planetary Resources asteroid-mining company.

Planetary Resources' ultimate goal is to identify promising near-Earth asteroids, and then process the water and the precious metals they contain. The metals could be used in space or transported back to Earth, while the water could be turned into breathable air and rocket fuel for deep-space missions. If the reality matches the vision, asteroid mining could become a multitrillion-dollar industry. "It's just waiting to be had," said the company's co-founder and co-chairman, Eric Anderson.

The software system that won NASA's backing, known as COARSE, could be used on the spacecraft that Planetary Resources will send to asteroids. But it could conceivably be used before that on NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, which is due for launch to a near-Earth asteroid in 2016. The same dual-use principle applies to a $124.960 NASA grant that Planetary Resources won last year for work on a laser-based communication system for small satellites.

Planetary Resources has said it is also receiving funding from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. "With reference to DARPA, the company cannot comment on any specific project work at this time," company president Chris Lewicki told NBC News in an emailed statement. "When appropriate, more details will be released."

By themselves, technology development contracts from NASA and DARPA won't get Planetary Resources to the company's near-Earth nirvana. But the income stream serves as a supplement to the money put into the venture by billionaire investors such as Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.

More funding ahead
There could be more government funding ahead: Last month, Aviation Week reported that NASA was planning to ask for $100 million as a down payment on a multibillion-dollar mission to corral a 23-foot-wide (7-meter-wide) asteroid and bring it to the vicinity of the moon for study. Also last month, lawmakers hinted that they'd support increased funding for asteroid research, particularly in light of February's meteor blast over Russia.

That beefed-up government spending could be seen as competition for commercial asteroid ventures — but it's more likely to turn into an opportunity.

"Let's create a cooperative situation from the very beginning, where different companies get a chance to participate and use some of that taxpayer money to catalyze the beginning of an industrial economy in space," said Rick Tumlinson, chairman of Deep Space Industries.

Like Planetary Resources, Deep Space Industries is trying to get into the asteroid-mining business — and looking for closer-to-home opportunities in the meantime. Tumlinson said his company is in the midst of discussions with NASA officials about potential deals. He doesn't mind the fact that he's competing with Planetary Resources for the business.

"One company is an anomaly. Two companies is an industry," Tumlinson said.

Selling technology
Both companies want to capitalize on technologies long before they hit the asteroid jackpot: Deep Space Industries touts 3-D printers that can turn ground-up metal into high-strength parts, even in zero gravity. Planetary Resources, meanwhile, plans to sell its Arkyd space telescopes for Earth observation or space exploration.

"If you wanted to send a camera to Mars or Venus, you could do it yourself," Planetary Resources' Anderson said.

Anderson provided an update on Planetary Resources' plans this week during a Hacker News Seattle meet-up. Here are some of the high points:

• The first prototype telescope is now scheduled to launch within about 22 months, most likely as a secondary payload on a rocket yet to be determined. That's roughly a year later than the initial projections, but Anderson told NBC News that the time frame was dependent on launch opportunities.
• Eventually, swarms of six to 12 probes would be sent out to near-Earth asteroids. Anderson said the first such deep-space reconnaissance mission could be launched in five to seven years.
• One of the asteroids on Anderson's "top 20 list" of prospects is an object cataloged as 2011 UW158, which is about a kilometer (half a mile) wide. The travel time for a space probe would be a little more than half a year, and if 2011 UW158 could be successfully mined, the value of the raw materials could range from $300 billion to $5.4 trillion, Anderson said. "That is a nice piece of rock," he said.
• Platinum-group metals, or PGMs, are among the most valuable (and most talked about) resources that asteroids could yield. The price of platinum is currently just a bit less than the price of gold — about $1,520 per ounce. Anderson said a single 500-meter-wide (quarter-mile-wide) asteroid could contain more platinum than has been mined during the history of humanity. Planetary Resources is looking at a process that would turn the extracted platinum into 220-pound, 7-foot-wide "wiffleballs" of foamed metal that could be sent down through the atmosphere without breaking up. The balls would hit the ground at a velocity of about 60 mph.

Is all this doable? Does it sound like pie (or platinum) in the sky? Either way, feel free to share your view in the comment section below.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

SpaceX said its robotic Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, bringing back more than a ton of cargo from the International Space Station.

"Welcome home!" the California-based company said in a Twitter update, heralding the Dragon's return to Earth after more than three weeks in space. SpaceX said its recovery crew watched the spacecraft descend to the sea at the end of its parachutes, and a ship headed to the site to haul the capsule aboard and bring it back to port.

"Time to go fishing!" the Canadian Space Agency said in a congratulatory tweet.

The on-time splashdown came at 12:34 p.m. ET, five and a half hours after the Dragon was released from the grip of the space station's robotic arm. "It looks both beautiful and nominal from here," Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, the station's commander, reported as the orbital outpost flew 256 miles (411 kilometers) above the Pacific.

NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn said he was "sad to see the Dragon go. ... Performed her job beautifully, heading back to her lair."

This marks the third time that SpaceX's commercial cargo craft has made a round trip to the space station. The first visit, in May 2012, showed NASA that the California-based company could deliver payloads safely. Last October, another Dragon took on the first of 12 cargo runs under the terms of a $1.6 billion contract with the space agency. This latest mission launched on March 1, carrying 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) of supplies and equipment.

SpaceX had to cope with a post-launch glitch involving the Dragon's thruster system, but the mission went swimmingly after that. Astronauts unloaded the cargo soon after its was brought in for its berthing at the station, and then refilled it with 2,600 pounds (1,180 kilograms) of payload items due to be returned to Earth — including scientific experiments, station hardware and trash. Packaging brought the total weight past the 3,000-pound (1,360-kilogram) mark, SpaceX said.

NASA said the plant samples that were brought back from the station could help scientists enhance crop production on Earth and develop food production systems for future space missions. Other experiments carried by the Dragon could help in the development of more efficient solar cells, detergents and electronics. 

The returned cargo also included 13 sets of Lego toy blocks that went up to the station two years ago aboard the shuttle Endeavour. The blocks were used by the astronauts in educational videos to demonstrate how machines work in weightlessness. One of the kits, a 3-foot-long (meter-long) scale model of the space station, was so bulky that it would have collapsed under its own weight in Earth's gravity.

NASA via SpaceX

SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule separates from the International Space Station's robotic arm on Tuesday.

NASA TV via Spaceflight Now

A thermal imager on SpaceX's Dragon capsule captures a view of the International Space Station during Tuesday's departure.

SpaceX

SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule floats down to the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday.

Dragon's return was originally scheduled for Monday, but "fairly aggressive" seas at the intended splashdown zone forced a one-day postponement, NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said. The weather was better on Tuesday, and the splashdown target was a couple of hundred miles nearer to shore, at a point in the Pacific 214 miles (344 kilometers) west of Baja California.

SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk, said the capsule was secured aboard its recovery ship without incident. "Cargo looks A ok," he reported in a Twitter update.

The ship is due to make a 30-hour voyage back to the port of Los Angeles, where time-sensitive biological samples will be offloaded. Then the Dragon and its remaining cargo will be trucked to SpaceX's facility in McGregor, Texas.

The next SpaceX cargo run is scheduled at the end of September. Another company, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., is working on a second commercial delivery system that's due for its first test launch next month. But only the Dragon is capable of bringing significant amounts of cargo back to Earth.

NASA selected SpaceX and Orbital to help fill the gap left by the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2011. Russian, European and Japanese cargo craft also service the space station. For now, Russia's Soyuz capsules are the only spacecraft that transport people to and from the station, but NASA intends to have U.S.-built commercial spaceships — perhaps including an upgraded version of the Dragon — carrying astronauts within five years.

More about SpaceX:

• SpaceX's next-gen engine cleared for liftoff
• Grasshopper rocket takes its biggest hop yet
• NBC News archive on SpaceX

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 26, 2013 7:29 AM EDT