LAS VEGAS -- A North Las Vegas aerospace company is preparing to boldly go where few have gone before -- a public-private partnership with NASA that could be the start of the next space race.

Nevada's Bigelow Aerospace Co. made a joint announcement with NASA Thursday morning in Washington, D.C., that puts the North Las Vegas company in the pilot seat for the exploration and commercial development of the moon, Mars and beyond.

When the I-Team broke the news in late March that Bigelow Aerospace had signed an agreement with NASA to become, in essence, the general contractor for the commercial development of space, there was considerable skepticism within the national aerospace press corps, who figured it couldn't be true because they would have known about it.

Well, it is true, and on Thursday, NASA admitted as much. The agreement is as wide open as space itself and it puts Bigelow right in the middle of exciting scenarios worthy of Star Trek.

Company founder Bob Bigelow's longstanding interest in building a commercial base on the surface of the moon just took a giant leap forward. He built his aerospace company from scratch in just a little over a decade, and is now a full-fledged partner with NASA in exploring the final frontier.

The Space Act Agreement signed by NASA and Bigelow contains extraordinary and ambitious language about extending human civilization throughout the solar system -- a colony on Mars, for instance. As Bigelow has told the I-Team several times over the past 10 years that he wants to use a string of his homegrown, inflatable habitats as the building blocks of a permanent base on the moon.

I-Team: "You look at this, and realize, you're serious. This could happen in our lifetime."

Bigelow: "We've already had clients who have an interest in lunar activity ... If you had a facility, we would be interested in talking to you about it, on the lunar surface. There's no reason you could not have multiple bases."

Back in January, Bigelow and NASA announced that the space agency would spend $18 million on one of his inflatable spacecraft to serve as an addition to the International Space Station, but during the announcement, Bigelow let slip his plans for his own space station, which could be built and launched within three years at a fraction of the cost of NASA's version.

At the time, he was already negotiating with NASA for a much larger role in the next space race, and now, he has it. Bigelow Aerospace will be the central link between NASA and dozens of private companies that want to play a role in the creation of a new economy -- a space economy, including proposals far more complex than mere space tourism: research, manufacturing, medicine and agriculture.

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I-Team: NASA, NLV Aerospace Co. to Explore Space Together