NASA contracts benefit North Las Vegas outfit

The private space race is affecting a small Las Vegas company.

NASA on Friday announced that it will give three aerospace companies more than $1.1 billion to build small spacecraft to take astronauts to the International Space Station. Two of those businesses - Boeing Co. of Houston and Space Exploration Technologies of California - have partnered with North Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace on orbit-related projects.

Robert Bigelow, owner and president of Bigelow Aerospace, called the funding "more aggressive" than prior NASA contracts and said he was "very happy" about the ramped-up investment, which will nearly double the workforce at his North Las Vegas plant.

Bigelow Aerospace began working with Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, in May to promote business and research space travel to governments and businesses that would use SpaceX's Dragon reusable spacecraft launched atop its Falcon rocket to reach Bigelow's orbiting BA 330 space habitat.

Bigelow Aerospace has also launched two of its Genesis satellites into orbit using Russian rockets. It's working with Boeing to develop a spacecraft to ferry crews to the International Space Station and, eventually, to Bigelow space stations. In May, the two companies conducted parachute drop tests of the spacecraft at the Delamar Dry Lake Bed near Alamo.

Bigelow Aerospace won't directly see any of the NASA funds, except "a very small fraction" as a Boeing testing and fabrication contractor. But the money will allow Boeing and SpaceX to perfect a way to get to Bigelow's space habitat, where governments and corporations could conduct space research and training if they fail to land a coveted seat on the six-person International Space Station.

Bigelow said NASA is to distribute additional funds from 2013 to 2015. Combine the possibility of sustained federal contracts for Bigelow Aerospace's partners with an increasing interest in space exploration among other nations and businesses, and Bigelow sees the need for new investments. The company just opened a 185,000-square-foot addition, bringing its North Las Vegas plant up to about 350,000 square feet. It slashed its work force from 150 before the recession to 50 during the downturn; now, it's looking to jump back up to 90 workers by Christmas. It's hiring structural, mechanical and electrical engineers, as well as chemists, molecular biologists and workers who craft composite spacecraft parts.

Bigelow said he has marked 2016 as a year when spacecraft availability will meet growing customer demand, and things really take off for the business.

"This is an embryonic situation where we've been in research-and-development mode for the last decade," Bigelow said. "As with anything you're trying to create from scratch, it takes a while to finally get to a point where you have something that's marketable. We are starting to approach that point in our little company."

Bigelow said the company has ambitions beyond low-Earth orbit: He's looking at getting involved in travel to the moon and even to Mars.

This is the third phase of NASA's efforts to get private space companies to take over the job of the now-retired space shuttle. Once the spaceships are built, NASA plans to hire the private companies to taxi astronauts into space within five years. Until they are ready, NASA is paying Russia to do the job

In addition to Boeing and SpaceX, NASA gave funding to SpaceDev, Inc., a Colorado-based wholly owned subsidiary of Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks.

NASA's commercial crew development program started with seven commercial companies.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.