DescentBB

Abyone remember the original International Space Station plans, which called for an inflatable crew habitat to be connected to the station? Well, it got killed along with the CRV (Crew Return Vehicle - based on the HL10 lifting body made famous by The Six Million Dollar Man).

Bigelow Aerospace did the original work, and after NASA pulled the pin, Bigelow stepped up to the plate (He's also co sponsoring the 50 Million dollar orbital X-Prize!) to develop the technology on their own. This is highly unusual, as the vast majority of NASA concelations usually mean money down the drain, and a 20 year delay in getting the technology into a usable shape.

Anyway, Bigelow just got permission to launch their 1/3rd scale inflatable habitat: http://www.space.com/news/bigelow_update_041124.html

This is great news for space tourists indeed, and it's inside one of these modules you might one day look down on planet Earth from 250 km up!

http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/cs.html

Well, atleast we're getting one step closer to being able to blast all of earth's retards into space.

You got your ticket yet?

That would make a great sitcom... *Retards in SPAAAACE!*. Episode one: Convulsions in Zero Gravity.

Episode two: The Mobius Factor.

bash wrote:That would make a great sitcom... *Retards in SPAAAACE!*. Episode one: Convulsions in Zero Gravity.

rofl!! That would be great

wow, no inteligent contributions so far to the thread.
i think that's kindof sad.

mobi what's the go with this inflatable space tech? i've not heard about it before and those links don't tell me much about the tech either.

is it like a balloon in space?

Ditto to Roid..... That's pretty cool. $50 Million Orbital X-Prize? That's news to me! Anybody got a linky to that one? [edit]nm, it's at the bottom of the article[/edit]

So, this would be completely seperate from the ISS, whereas the original one was meant for the ISS?
Mebbe Richard Branson's dream will be coming sooner than expected.

Would these things really be that safe against radiation, meteroids, etc?

If its a balloon, no.

In fact., they'd be safer than conventional structures, because the walls are about a foot thick, and have many many layers...

Yes, they repell radiation better than metal, because you make your water tank to fill the gaps between the layers. 3 inches of water do more to stop radiation than just about anything. (Cosmic rays have trouble passing through hydrogen).

They also much larger than the craft used to launch them. The original diameter might be 20 feet, but when "inflated" it might reach 40 feet.

Yes, it's highly doubtful an inflatable will ever be docked to ISS, but that doesn't matter - as long as SOMEONE gets SOMETHING up there SOON. (i.e. before I'm too old to use it!)

Mobius wrote:as long as SOMEONE gets SOMETHING up there SOON. (i.e. before I'm too old to use it!)

I highly doubt it