SpaceX

So, a private company, SpaceX, has successfully placed a capsule in orbit and retrieved it. SpaceX becomes only the seventh organization, and the first non-governmental organization, to acomplish this feat. Said launch was a test flight of SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which has an unmanned cargo version and a manned transport version.

I've talked about cost to orbit in my space colonization discussions. SpaceX's solution is not cheap, but vastly cheaper than any existing one. Nor are they alone - other companies are working on the problem. I am convinced that (relatively) low cost to orbit is coming. The question isn't "if," it's "when" and "how low?"