Starring role

With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq putting a combined financial drain on the US economy, NASA project chiefs have had to tighten their belts a little more than they are used to.

Faced with budget cuts, NASA and other US government agencies may have to turn to the private sector to drag the industry over the final few yards towards commercial space flight.

Which will suit one man in particular. Jim Benson, chief executive and founder of private space technology company SpaceDev, has just agreed a contract to launch micro-satellites for the US Air Force Research Laboratory, promising to make him an even wealthier man than he is already.

Benson, a computer entrepreneur who made his name — and a few million dollars — as founder of Compusearch in the mid-1980s, set up SpaceDev in 1996 when he decided that the space industry needed a Benson-style makeover.

Nobody could accuse him of lacking self-belief, and his ambitions — which extend to privately-funded space settlements — are on the face of it far-fetched. However, unlike other space visionaries, Benson has a track record in the fledgling commercial space sector.