The year opened with a presidential commitment to space unrivaled since John F. Kennedy's vow to put a man on the moon: In January, George W. Bush promised not only to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 but also to use it as a testing ground for possible "human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond." His directive came less than a year after the Columbia disaster grounded NASA's human-spaceflight program.

On June 21, Burt Rutan's innovative manned rocket, SpaceShipOne, touched down in the Mojave Desert after a historic trip into suborbital space. Pilot Mike Melvill flew the rocket to 328,491 feet, just barely punching out of the atmosphere. After touchdown, as the craft was being towed before a crowd of 27,000 spectators, newly crowned astronaut Melvill sat astride his spaceship holding a sign that read "SpaceShipOne, GovernmentZero."

If the flight does indeed mark the beginning of nongovernment-supported spaceflight, what comes next?