The Genesis craft which was built by Bigelow Aerospace has blasted into space via a Dnepr rocket from Siberia's Dombarovsky missile base at 7:53 AM Pacific time.

The inflatable spacecraft was built by the commercial company owned by hotel tycoon Robert Bigelow. A converted Russian intercontinental ballistic missile carried the spacecraft into space.

Genesis was based on a NASA-discarded design and will be inflated to a its full size (from its 15 ft. by 8 ft. size) once it's in orbit.

The goal of sending and testing the inflatable spacecraft is to make space access cheaper - and perhaps easier. Because it would be less expensive to send a craft that's one-third the size of a typical spacecraft ("hard" habitation, as they call it), it would also translate to a less costly stay for people who want to go to space.

The Genesis craft is also tough and durable, and willbe able to withstand space debris. The craft is made of a variety of materials, including a fibrous textile called Vectran and Kevlar which is used in bullet-proof vests. Once inflated, the walls of Genesis will be 16 inches thick. The 13 cameras onboard the craft will also be activated then to monitor the living inhabitants of the said module - cockroaches and Mexican jumping bean moths.

If this test (and succeeding ones) show promising results, expect space to be commercialized accessible soon.

The Genesis Mission was launched on August 8, 2001 having the mission to gather samples of solar wind and return them to Earth. But unfortunately upon its return, the capsule drogue parachute malfunctioned. Needless to say it suffered a very hard landing. Two days after the incident, NASA formed a Mishap Board to investigate why it plummeted to the ground. The Board has determined the direct cause of the mishap to be that sensors were in an inverted position because of an erroneous design.

Excerpt from Genesis Mishap Investigation Board Report:

The Board determined the proximate (or direct) cause of mishap to be that the G-switch sensors were in an inverted orientation, per an erroneous design, and were unable to sense sample return capsule deceleration during atmospheric entry and initiate parachute deployments. Section 4.0 describes the proximate cause and lists other candidates that the Board investigated.

The Board found that deficiencies in the following four pre-launch processes resulted in the mishap:

• the design process inverted the G-switch sensor design;
• the design review process did not detect the design error;
• the verification process did not detect the design error; and
• the Red Team review process did not uncover the failure in the verification process.

At the recent annual meeting of the American Physical Society in Dallas, Texas, Dr. Robert Gentry presented his abstract on  "new cosmic model," which proves beyond all doubt that the account of creation as presented in the Biblical Book of Genesis is absolutely accurate. Dr. Gentry's model, presented during a "poster session" of the APS,  shows unequivocally that the so-called "Big Bang" never happened, and that Earth was indeed created in six days.

Needless to say, few of the scientists who were at the meeting take Dr. Gentry's "research" seriously. Why, then, was the poster displayed at the APS meeting? APS Director of Public Affairs Michael Lubell explains: " The APS policy is to accept any abstracts from members that reference physics, even if they are 'crackpot.'" The reason for this "open-door" policy dates back over a half century, when a rejected scientist named Bayard Peakes gunned down an APS secretary in her office. "Since then," Lubell adds, "the APS has accepted just about any abstract that comes over the transom."

Shades of the Inquisition...