NASA's next purchase?

Well, probably not, but the evolution of SpaceShipOne into Virgin Galactic's fleet of spaceships for space tourism could be an option.

"What I would most like to do is to be able to buy those services from industry," NASA Administrator Mike Griffin recently told SpaceNews regarding supplying and supporting the International Space Station.

The X-Prize and Burt Rutan changed the way people think about space and if Virgin Galactic stays on pace, it will revolutionize not just the private space business, but the entire future of space exploration.