Russia has become the place for the extremely rich to live out their astronaut fantasies, and hotel magnate Robert Bigelow has taken full advantage of the Ruskies willingness to accept money for pretty much anything. The Genesis I rocket just launched from the Ural Mountains, a region you may remember from playing Risk with your uncle, and has carried Bigelow's inflatable spacecraft into orbit. Bigelow envisions creating very large inflatable crafts that could be used for research, study, and, yes, hotels. Having invested $500 million in the whole project, he'd better hope it works out, and that the Genesis doesn't get punctured by a meteorite or anything. He has high hopes, however, envisioning a series of habitable Genesis-like modules linked together by 2015. Meanwhile, somewhere in Russia, a vodka merchant with mafia ties is $500 million richer… — Adam Frucci