on america's space program. they were a new generation of private entrepreneurs who invested their own wealth into what seemed like a crack-pot idea, civilians going into space. but it took the unsorry xprise, a competition with $10 million in winnings, to spark a new space race, this time in the private sector. the quest reached its climax in 2004 when spaceship 1 became the first private spacecraft to go into suborbital space and return. 13 years on, the $10 million x prize purse translated into a billion dollars of nongovernmental investment into a new space race. private enterprise now stands poised to take over the transport of passengers and cargo toe earth's orbit and fre up the nasa's of the world to plan more ambitious projects to mars and beyond. spacex, blue virgin and galactic