Wall maps chart the path of Genesis I inside the mission control bay at Bigelow Aerospace in North Las Vegas. Photos by Jeff Scheid. Robert Bigelow glances over a model of a Genesis spacecraft on Friday in his office. Fifteen-year-old Rod Bigelow, left, listens to his grandfather talk Friday about the Genesis I inflatable spacecraft. Multiple screens monitor the Genesis I spacecraft at Bigelow Aerospace in North Las Vegas on Friday. A converted missile blasted off from Russia Wednesday, carrying the experimental inflatable spacecraft.

A stream of photographs taken by cameras aboard the Genesis I inflatable spacecraft flashed Friday on computer consoles and giant display panels inside the mission control bay at Bigelow Aerospace in North Las Vegas.

It's a dream come true for Robert T. Bigelow, the company's president and a real estate magnate, who as a youngster growing up in Las Vegas was inspired by the Soviet Union's Sputnik orbiting Earth in 1957.

Twelve years later, on July 20, 1969, when American astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped out of Apollo 11 and onto the moon, Bigelow, now 62, said he hoped that someday he, too, could play a pioneering role in the conquest of space.

That day happened Wednesday when a converted ballistic missile blasted off from a silo in Russia's Ural Mountains, sending Bigelow's one-third scale Genesis I inflatable spacecraft into orbit, 342 miles above Earth.

Air, compressed by 4,500 pounds of pressure, inflated the watermelon-shaped, Kevlar-layered, 14-foot-long module to 8 feet in diameter, or twice its width at launch time.

Inside were some living things, like cockroaches and Mexican jumping beans, and some nonliving things, like a SpongeBob SquarePants doll and photos of Bigelow Aerospace employees.

"We were not prepared for the kind of success that we've already experienced," Bigelow said in an interview at his office inside the cavernous building where he has a bird's eye view of the mission control bay and wall-size maps charting the path of Genesis I. Located off Martin Luther King Boulevard near Cheyenne Avenue, the heavily guarded, 50-acre site has its own roads with names like Warp Drive and Skywalker Way.

"We were emotionally prepared for failure," he said. "The nature of aerospace is that it's usually very difficult to have something successful the first time out. So we're kind of humbled and very cautious about expecting the success to be repeated as easily."

On Wednesday, the mission control team was filled with emotion.

"People were crying," he said. "We had a live feed from the launch facility that we weren't expecting. The rocket took off and everybody clapped and cheered.

"Those kudos weren't for us because our spacecraft hadn't performed yet. But we were damn glad that the launch was successful, which was a big deal. ... That's a big first step," he said.

With each pass the spacecraft makes in its 90-minute orbits, the controllers have a brief time window to download data on its condition and capture signals that will be converted into images from 13 cameras aboard.

An antenna in Arlington, Va., also receives signals and the company is building others in Hawaii and Alaska to broaden reception for future space ventures.

Another launch is planned for this fall, followed by one every six months that will put five inflatable spacecraft in orbit over the next 2 1/2 years. Those craft will carry ants, scorpions and spiders. People will be able to pay $295 to have their photos and small mementos aboard.

From the standpoint of science, Bigelow believes his inflatable spacecraft will play an important role. "I think that there's going to be some accidental discoveries, or through hard work, innovations on things that could make a difference to medical science or materials science," he said.

He said Genesis I is carrying a payload for NASA-Ames research center. He declined to discuss the project but said he expects an announcement will be made soon.

In several years, Genesis I will be pulled by the Earth's gravitational field into the atmosphere and burn up on re-entry.

By 2010, he said he hopes to have a full-scale inflatable spacecraft, a 330 cubic-meter craft made at his Bigelow Aerospace facility. The BA-330, he said, could become a destination for other private space ventures that will take civilians into space.

A few years ago, Bigelow sought investors to help finance the $50 million American Space Prize to spur development of private, manned spacecraft.

"We had about 40 some-odd interested parties. Not one of them had any money and so unfortunately that program is not likely to produce anything," he said. "I think at this time, we're looking to a couple other domestic solutions perhaps. And if that doesn't work then we're back to working with the Russians."

So far, Bigelow said, he has spent $75 million on his space venture, using money from the fortune he made developing real estate and owning the Budget Suites of America hotel chain. The costs include the launch, equipment, spacecraft development and salaries for his team of 125 scientists, engineers and support personnel.

Among the hurdles he's had to overcome was "getting the kind of political permissions that are necessary, particularly when you're trying to use a foreign rocket."

"And this government -- the United States government -- has some serious impositions on the private sector when it comes to cooperating with foreign countries on a space initiative," he said. "To my knowledge, we're the only country that has this self-imposed problem, and that's significant."

Bigelow said he looked to Russian companies to launch his craft because "we would have paid 10 times as much if we had tried to use any of the missiles out of this country."

He said the space frontier "should not ever be the future of countries. It should be the future of all kinds of opportunities to do business, to travel and for people to be able to afford to eventually get into space and not have it be an impossible reach."