Start saving now. A new player in the space hotel market has announced that it's planning to welcome guests in 2012. The price? A three-night stay will run $4 million.

To get its orbital hotel rooms into place, The Galactic Suite Project, as it's called, will launch each one independently. Tourist trips will start with an extended training program set on a tropical island. Then a rocket-powered ship will carry four passengers and two pilots into orbit, where they'll rendezvous with the hotel. While it's unclear whether the company's technology is on track for that 2012 deadline, the group certainly has its sales pitch down. My favorite line: "Imagine being in a weightless spa while watching 15 sunsets a day." Uh, no, sorry, can't do that. Guess I'll have to scrounge up that $4 million to see what it's like.—Gregory Mone

Late this month, if everything goes according to plan, Space Exploration Corporation, or SpaceX for short, will launch its privately funded two-stage rocket, Falcon I, into low-Earth orbit, carrying with it the U.S. Department of Defense’s TacSat-1 satellite. The ride costs just under $6 million, a price that undercuts the competition by up to two thirds. “We want to be the Southwest Airlines of space launches,” says SpaceX CEO and PayPal founder Elon Musk.