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ARMADILLO AEROSPACE

Founder: John Carmack, 33.
Tech connection: Carmack co-founded Id Software, the company behind hugely popular video games Doom and Quake.
Location: Mesquite, Texas.
Goal: Build a reusable rocket to take passengers on short flights to the edge of space. Win the X Prize.
Funding: About $600,000 so far, from Carmack. Total costs expected to be around $1 million. Armadillo's six staffers are volunteers who work evenings and weekends.
Status: Armadillo built and tested several prototypes. The company is now building Black Armadillo, its first commercial rocket. Recent work includes fine-tuning the parachute re-entry system and laying out the rocket's plumbing. Armadillo hopes to launch next year.

SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES (SpaceX)

Founder: Elon Musk, 32.
Tech connection: Co-founded PayPal, an online payment system sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.
Location: El Segundo, Calif.
Goal: Build low-cost, reusable rockets for sending satellites and other cargo into orbit around the Earth. SpaceX's first rocket, Falcon, is valued at about $6 million, vs. about $30 million for the cheapest rocket NASA uses.
Funding: Musk has invested "$20 to $40 million."
Status: SpaceX is testing Falcon. Its first launch is planned for January 2004, SpaceX says.

BLUE ORIGIN

Founder: Jeff Bezos, 39.
Tech connection: Bezos is CEO of online retailer Amazon.com.
Location: Seattle.
Goal: Believed by industry insiders to be building a reusable rocket, New Shepard, named after astronaut Alan Shepard, that can take seven passengers on short flights to the edge of space. Bezos won't comment.
Funding: Backed by Bezos. Amount unknown.
Status: Web site says only that its research is "primarily focused on identifying and developing ideas that will improve the safety and decrease the cost of getting into space."

SCALED COMPOSITES

Founder: Burt Rutan, 60.
Tech connection: Believed to be backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Allen and Scaled Composites won't comment.
Location: Mojave, Calif.
Goal: Build a reusable passenger rocket to be a prototype for a commercial space airliner. Win the X Prize.
Funding: Unknown.
Status: Scaled Composites' spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, was unveiled in April and has flown a short test flight. It's considered the leading contender for the X Prize.

XCOR AEROSPACE

Founder: Jeff Greason, 36.
Tech connection: Greason formerly worked at Intel as a chip designer. He holds 18 U.S. patents.
Location: Mojave, Calif.
Goal: Build a reusable rocket to take passengers and small cargo into space. Win the X Prize.
Funding: Greason and a team of investors back XCOR with an undisclosed sum.
Status: XCOR is working on the design for Xerus, its first spacecraft.

LIFEBOAT FOUNDATION

Headed by: Eric Klien, 37.
Tech connection: Klien heads Web-hosting firm Colossus.
Location: Minden, Nev.
Goal: Build a "space ark," a self-sufficient space station where humans could live if the Earth becomes uninhabitable.
Funding: About $100,000, largely from Klien, but with the help of some other small donors. Klien is searching for investors.
Status: Still in concept phase. British Telecom's futurist, Ian Pearson, just joined the board. Klien hopes to finish the station by 2020.

Source: USA TODAY research