When Hurricane Katrina roared through the U.S. Gulf Coast on August 29, devastating New Orleans, it shut down a major NASA facility, bringing the space agency's seemingly endless struggle to resume shuttle flights to a swift halt. The Michoud Assembly Facility, located about 15 miles east of the French Quarter, manufactures and repairs the space shuttle's giant external fuel tank-the same tank whose shedding insulation led to the destruction of Columbia in February 2003 and grounded the shuttle fleet last July.

The Cosmos 1 solar sail experiment was lost on Tuesday when the Russian Volna rocket carrying it to orbit failed, according to the Russian Space Agency. Had the launch been successful, the experiment would have tested whether sunlight could have pushed the spacecraft into a higher orbit. Explore the mission that was to be with our exclusive slideshow, pulled from the pages of Popular Science.

On June 21, the California-based nonprofit Planetary Society will attempt for the fourth time to launch its privately funded Cosmos 1 solar sail.

Not long ago, space seemed the almost exclusive purview of governments‚ specifically those of the United States and the Soviet Union. Now, with private rocket companies building relatively inexpensive launch vehicles and entrepreneurs hawking the notion of sending tourists into space, anyone with a grand vision, a feasible plan and a big bankroll can take a shot at the great beyond. Here’s our map of this brave new world. Influence is measured by distance from the Sun—the closer a group is, the more important it is.