Lockheed Martin has entered into an agreement with Bigelow Aerospace to pursue the potential of launching passengers on human-qualified Atlas V rockets. The destination would be a Bigelow-built space complex assembled from expandable modules. Bigelow's first launch of a prototype expandable module, Genesis I, took place on July 12th atop a Dnepr rocket from Russia.

I've never really understood the whole "human rated" thing -- its not like its "ok" if a launch vehicle failure destroys a $300M satellite or dumps it into a worthless orbit.

NASA seems to have dismissed launching people into LEO on Delta or Atlas out-of-hand and I'm not sure I really understand why -- their argument seemed to be along the lines of, "it would be cheaper to develop a new rocket from recycled STS parts than to re-certify existing vehicles."

But seeing as how the new "heavy" versions of Delta and Atlas can both launch as much as Ares I (~25000kg) into LEO, Ares I seems more and more redundant.

Bigelow Aerospace and Lockheed Martin Agree to Study Human-qualified Atlas V Rocket for Entrepreneurial Space Development | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference