Inflatable space dreams

Posted: Monday, July 10, 2006 7:50 PM by Alan Boyle

It's taken months longer than he hoped, but real-estate billionaire Robert Bigelow might just see his first orbital spacecraft take flight at last on Wednesday, courtesy of a converted Russian intercontinental ballistic missile.

If Bigelow Aerospace's Genesis 1 inflatable space module lifts off successfully, the test mission could mark a significant step toward an era of hotels and even sports complexes in space.

Bigelow via AP

An artist's conception shows Bigelow Aerospace's
Genesis 1 spacecraft after orbital inflation.

Russia's Federal Space Agency lists Genesis 1 for a Wednesday launch from the Dombarovsky military missile base in southwestern Siberia. This would be the first on-orbit test of Bigelow's inflatable-module concept, which was actually developed at NASA for future space station modules or Mars ships. When NASA canned the concept, which was known as Transhab, Bigelow bought the rights to commercialize the idea - and hired some of the original designers.

The concept calls for sending up a compressed, soft-sided spacecraft that could be inflated once it's in orbit - sort of like one of those blow-up kiddie play chambers you see at carnivals. Only in this case, the walls are made out of graphite-fiber composite materials that would be tough enough to stand up to encounters with micrometeoroids and orbital debris.

Such modules would be cheaper to send into space, and allow for larger pressurized volumes once they were inflated. For example, the one-third-scale Genesis prototype is designed to puff up from about 6 feet in diameter to about twice that size. As Bigelow's test program proceeds, the prototypes are supposed to grow larger - ending up in a full-scale Nautilus craft that would enclose 11,650 cubic feet (330 cubic meters), or roughly the volume of a three-bedroom home.

Bigelow is already floating some ideas for using the test modules a commercial opportunities: The second launch, which could take place in the September-October time frame, could fly photos and mementos into space for less than $300 each. As part of the deal, pictures of the items floating in zero-G - as well as views outside - would be beamed back down to Earth. Bigelow Aerospace's Web site suggests that a space-based bingo game has been under consideration, as well as space art and orbital billboard messages.

Eventually, space tourism ventures could offer budget accommodations in a Nautilus hotel complex, for far less than the current $20 million going rate for trips to the international space station. And IPX Entertainment's Rocky Persaud has his heart set on using an inflatable module as a venue for zero-G athletics.

Bigelow's venture might sound like a lot of hot air, but NBC News space analyst James Oberg said in an e-mail that "the idea he is pursuing in his 'venture capitalistic' Wild West style has genuine merits and high future profit potential ... if not for him, for the next consortium that picks up the baton."

Oberg said the key shortcoming for Bigelow's plan has always been the question of how to provide affordable access to any private facility built in orbit.

"But two recent trends - the NASA support for commercial space transportation to support the future of the existing space station, and the French-Russian construction of a Soyuz spacecraft launch capability from the equatorial space base at Kourou in French Guiana - promise a potential solution to this shortcoming in the next six to eight years," Oberg wrote.

In the short term, Bigelow is going with the low-cost Russian launches - and in the longer term, he's planning to use SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. A 2008 flight is already listed on SpaceX's launch manifest. Bigelow is also trying to kick-start the orbital options by sponsoring a $50 million America's Space Prize for private-sector orbital spaceships.

Lots has been written about Bigelow's ambitions: Check out this archived article from Oberg for MSNBC.com, this article from Popular Science, and this from Aviation Week and Spaceflight Now. You'll also find references to the Bigelow plan this week in Technology Review and Flight International. And to keep track of the private-sector space race, you can't do better than Clark Lindsey's RLV and Space Transport News and Jeff Foust's Personal Spaceflight, which both deserve a big tip o' the hat from Cosmic Log.

Once you've drawn in all these facts and fancies, feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

Update for 7:05 p.m. July 11: Bigelow Aerospace's Mike Gold says in an e-mail from Russia that the launch may or may not go off on Wednesday. "All I can say right now is we still expect to hit our previously announced launch window of July 4-14."

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Comments

Wow it is amazing the things that are feasible these days. Sports in space, hotels, they are mind blowing advances humans have made.

Greg Saylor, Cincinnati, Oh (Sent Monday, July 10, 2006 9:28 PM)

Let's hope the inflateable Bigelow blows up big in orbit and not on the LV.

Reader (Sent Monday, July 10, 2006 9:39 PM)

kewl now i can become a member of the 50,000 mile club

Dodgy,Small Talk,Texas (Sent Monday, July 10, 2006 9:59 PM)

i can't believe they even featured this, it's not even a legitimate company...

tim, boston, ma (Sent Monday, July 10, 2006 10:00 PM)

I wanna go!

Dan Twyman (Sent Monday, July 10, 2006 10:30 PM)

I could be dead wrong about this, but weren’t those inflatable habitat modules (which make great sense) canceled by a congressional subcommittee just because they didn’t want to make a Mars mission affordable and therefore too tempting??? At least that’s the rumor that pops to mind.

Subcommittees, in general, have been a larger part of NASA’s problems that I think many realize. I still remember the day (while watching Satellite TV back around 1991) how they cancelled a heavy-lift booster rocket based on the shuttle's external fuel tank – after years and millions had already been invested. What the chairman apparently didn’t realize (or did) was that this one single decision doomed the space station to be so much more expensive than it had to be and also totally dependent on the shuttle for construction.

People need to realize that things like space stations and moon bases need consistent backing and have many “integral components” that are just as vital to the main goal. Throw away one part and you might as well forget the whole, but that's exactly what they end up doing. Apart from canceling the economical heavy-lift rocket they also cancelled the seven-person space station lifeboat (that would have insured the safety of a full crew) and they cancelled (last I heard) the crew module that is needed if we are to ever do some actual science up there. That’s like building a tank when all you plan to do is put a drive in it… Duh!

As per the space hotel, I certainly hope they plan construction and habitation around the next solar maximum (2012), which is predicted to be one of the strongest in memory.

Chris (Sent Monday, July 10, 2006 11:00 PM)

It all comes down to dollars per pound in orbit. Then you have to look at the reliability of the booster and the return device, be it capsule, spaceplane, or what. How much risk will the super rich accept (or be allowed to accept)? Boards, insurance companies and stockholders may have something to say about real and perceived risk!

Inflatable is good, if only to limit the construction costs. You will still have to launch and support the staff (wouldn't want the customers having to do for themselves, would we?). Besides which, the maintenance will be on-going. Paris Hilton repairing my oxygen system - I don't think so!

All the hotels and sports venues in orbit might affect the human expansion into space, but without a real goal on some solid surface, I suspect there won't be much influence. Viable moon colonies and asteroid mining will be more significant in the long term.

Wade Whitlock, Aberdeen, MD (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 8:55 AM)

When Bob Bigelow's inflatable space station plans unfold millions of American people will be surprised not having been paying attention to this developing private effort. We are amid a transition from one space era to the next. I bid the Bigelow Aerospace team great success with this test. I am curious Alan: how did Bigelow navigate ITAR to launch w/the Russians? That must be a story all to itself!

JackKennedy (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 10:23 AM)

I say go with it. We never will get anywhere unless we try. So what if millions are spent to find out something wont work. How else would we know unless we try and fail. And what if it works? I bet there will be some people who will feel really dumb because they shot down the idea. I mean, didn't someone have to cross the ocean to find out there was another continent? It's called adventure!

James, Springfield, TN (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 10:28 AM)

This is great! It is about time we are developing ways to explore and live in space!

BAB, Maine (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 10:45 AM)

Tim:
It's legit.... www.bigelowaerospace.com...
And if all goes well, it will be even more legit as it will actually have something up there, unlike all the other private space contenters besides Virgin Galactic.

John Jackson (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 11:23 AM)

Tim: please provide a basis for your comment that Bigelow is not a legitimate company. While it may be true, all the press I've seen shows the trappings of a legitimate company (capital, facilities, and plans)

Chris: I hadn't heard about making Mars too affordable. The story I heard was that Transhab had the potential for turning into the last module of the space station (back in the days before shuttle retirement talk), and the competition was discouraged by the prime contractor. This article discusses its possible use at station, though it doesn't go deeper into the conspiracy theory:

http://www.chron.com/cgi-bin/auth/story.mpl/
content/interactive/space/
iss/1998////980824.html

Tom, Silver Spring, MD (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 11:30 AM)

Tim, you haven't done your research. It's a legitimate company, and they've put $15M into development already. See http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/multiverse/ for more information.

Let's all keep our fingers crossed for a successful launch!

Joe Strout, Fort Collins, CO (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 12:16 PM)

i applaud bigelow's pioneer spirit and the engineers employed to make this idea plausible.

shannon, huntsville, texas (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 12:58 PM)

What do you mean it is not even a legitimate company? You can't be refering to Bigelow Aerospace. Robert Bigelow has put up $500 million of his own money to fund this effort. The vehicle is sitting on the pad right now.

Another reader (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 1:49 PM)

I agree completely with Oberg about affordable human access to space. Space hotels are great, but if you have to be a multi-millionaire to afford the trip, that's a pretty exclusive travel club. Until the cost of getting into space drops dramatically- with safety at a level not even NASA currently enjoys- space tourism for the middle-class will remain just a dream. A fully reusable craft (perhaps a piggy-back design with both vehicles able to re-launch within days) seems to be the best hope for affordability. The "space hop" à la Virgin Galactic is a nice toe-in-the-water first step, but even those won't be all that inexpensive at first- and your "space time" will be measured in precious minutes, which makes for a mighty short "vacation."

One thing's for certain; it's going to be the private sector- not NASA- that leads the way into space for the average Joe or Jane. The "cutting edge" technology that NASA prefers is all well and good to help the country remain a world leader in innovation and design, but a simple, safe and reliable launch system for the rest of us is what will fill the space hotels, and make space tourism a profitable reality.

Mark Wakely, Lombard, Illinois (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 1:55 PM)

I will agree with Tim above..."not a legitimate company". Remember this is the same guy, Bigelow, that was making claims to build a 100 person plus 50 crew lunar space cruiser back in 1999...read the laughable logistics of what Bigelow was saying about how he was going to get a 'spaceship' of that size in space. see: http://wired.com/wired/archive/8.01/rocketman_pr.html
If you look at Bigelow's website and asks for 'input' on whether things like 'live animals' in space would be entertaining (boring...has he ever looked at space flight history....they have flown all types of animals, dogs, monkies/insects etc. since the mid-50's)...Bigelow mentions flying rats to "propogate in space"...so what value is that?? Whatever is flown on his module(s) can't be returned to Earth.
Bigelow also asks the public if there was interest in 'Space Bingo' or other space based games....am I missing something...why would Bingo in space be entertaining?? The general public today is dialed into virtual reality...not Bingo in space reality.
As far as Bigelow's bantering about a space hotel...he does not even have a clue what it will take.
Again..remember this is a guy who made his living/money building hotels and changes whatever grand plans he says he is going to do in space every few years.

Jim Jacks Houston, Texas (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 2:35 PM)

The reason NASA had to dump the Transhab technology...one of the best, cutting edge things to come out of NASA in years...was a political one. At the time Boeing was building their Habitation module for ISS and saw Transhab technology as a threat to their contracted module. So a law got passed in Congress disallowing any NASA funds to be spent on Transhab technology for 3 years...this was back in 2000.
Since then the Habitation module got canceled too.
Unfortunatley Transhab would have been a huge cost savings...fully self contatined, shirt sleeve environment in one launch and a big relief to all the current stowage problems on ISS.

Bill Awes (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 2:44 PM)

This project seems to be a very exciting and inspirational project for the entire space-oriented community. I hope that it will be successful in all areas.

Dan Daniel, Austin, Texas (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 2:50 PM)

Yes, this achievement is mind-blowing and is the next imperative step in our "information age." However, we must put into consideration the malignant issues that will stem off from this success. NO, it won't be utter chaos, but you will have your greedy entrepreneurs, huge monopolies, and probably another space race!! Maybe, it is my paranoia writing, but it is a huge probability that this alone can start something huge, both good and bad.

Bea Gomez, houston tx (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 5:52 PM)

big thumbs up for Bigalow...and any other private company smart enough to see TRILLIONS in space to shoot for where some are satisfied with millions on earth...many new Trillionaires will come forth in the next century..I hope we get to see the start.

Kevin Marsh,Tyrone Pennsylvania (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 7:14 PM)

I used to work for Bigelow. He is a tough taskmaster and brutal with his decisions. But whether or not you think Bigelow Aerospace is "a real company" or not depends completely on your defintion of "a real company." They have spent millions true enough. They might have been able to move faster with different people in decision making roles early on, but last I heard, they now have a ex-TRW satellite veteran as their Chief Engineer. That Chief Engineer usually has to educate Mr. B. about every detail about space, and spacecraft, but Mr. B. is a business genius/savant, not an aerospace engineer, and he soaks everything up like a sponge anyway. He reads everything. He turned one of his houses into his library. Mr. B. is the missing ingredient in true space commercialization. He is the idea guy willing to risk his own money on an idea that MIGHT make money in space. And he is willing to wait however long it takes, to make it a reality. Fifteen years is not too long to wait for him. He did take 30 million dollars and he turned it into 975 million dollars worth of hotels in Las Vegas, and in the rest of the southwest United States. And if you really want to support commercial space, you would stay at a Budget Suites of America sometime. It would be money better spent than just giving in to NASA. If he can money spin like that (like he did with his econo-hotels) with a concern in space, he deserves to be as big a part of space history as Von Braun. He is taking a huge risk and most venture capitalists think his ideas are too risky. Lucky for him, he doesn't need them. It is a shame that the CEO's of the Boeing's and the Lockheed's of the world, with their deeper pockets are not as visionary, and will not, or can not follow in his footsteps.

Tony Rusi (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 7:37 PM)

Nice hat!

Robin, Sherman Oaks, CA (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 9:04 PM)

If Boeing had an approved contract and their module was under construction, I’m not sure why such drastic measures would have been needed to stop Transhab. I guess the only thing NASA could have done would have been to buy out the Boeing contract if the cost savings of the Transhab was sufficient.

Maybe Boeing felt their entire future space enterprise was threatened and lobbied for such measure? Congress certainly couldn’t say their law was to protect jobs as offsetting jobs would have been created at Transhab. Boeing certainly wasn’t playing fair ball a couple years ago and got caught two - maybe three – times on ethical violations.

I’m not sure things have added up since the last Apollo mission. I know Von Braun retired early and frustrated with the whole thing. All of his dreams (such as a massive space station) were right within reach and yet the whole thing was canned for promised savings that never materialized.

Space bingo just seems like one of those harmless measures to stir up media attention. Odd things always seem to grab headlines…

Thanks Bill!

Chris (Sent Tuesday, July 11, 2006 10:59 PM)

Transhab was a percieved threat by Boeing, they obviously lobbied their congressman and a 'law' was introduced in and passed by Congress not to spend NASA funds on Transhab development. Boeing was standing to losing 100's of million of dollars, don't think they were NOT out lobbying and protecting their interests regardless of what was better for NASA.
The NASA/JSC guys engineered, designed and built a full scale test article that was completly successful in less than 8 months.
Threat...you bet!

Bill Awes (Sent Wednesday, July 12, 2006 10:44 AM)

As was said nearly 45 years ago by one "Smilin'" Al Shepard "Let's light this candle"

If we truly want to commercialize space then it's about time we get on with the space BUSINESS...if we wait for government (which is GREAT for research and development activites) to commercialize it we shall be waiting a VERY long time.

I wish him all the success in the world, hope he pulls it off.

George R. Kasica, Jackson WI (Sent Wednesday, July 12, 2006 10:53 AM)

I just read that the Genesis launch today was successful! The REAL problem with inflatables is how fast they leak. If they have solved that problem then Mr. B. might have something. He will know a year from now.

Tony Rusi (Sent Wednesday, July 12, 2006 2:29 PM)

It did launch. Bigelow has one ground station (which equals less than 17 minutes a day comm), some small torque rods to 'control' the stabilization of the vehicle, which the vehicle could be in a tumble for months depending on how 'hard' it got deployed from the Dnepr, meaning this will determine if they get any comm or not.

Bill Awes (Sent Wednesday, July 12, 2006 5:16 PM)

Bigelow also wanted to fly as payloads 'live' systems which are Mexican Jumping beans and Cockroaches which would somehow have to 'live' through the first two hours unpressurized, i.e. space vacuum. Though these 'bugs' would be already dead since they delayed their flight by 4 weeks. Great planning.
The external cameras are rated for 150F while the vehicle is supposed to be in a solar exposed orbit the first ten days of flight which is 250F + .
Some more of that planning I guess.

Bill Awes (Sent Wednesday, July 12, 2006 5:21 PM)

Politics is one of the main obstacles that prevents most innovative concepts from becoming realized in the US. Based on recent events, maybe if there were terrorists in space then the nation would invest more in space technology?

parity_bit , Fair Lakes, VA (Sent Wednesday, July 12, 2006 6:04 PM)

I think all of us who have watched NASA founder these many years knows that we took a wrong turn back in the 70's to use the space shuttle. It was long ago proven that "big dumb rockets" could have served the space program much better and much more cheaply that the shuttle program. Perhaps the "pilot" mentality won out, or the idea of something "reusable" sounded good for the environment and therefore our wallets. But, Congress does not have the motivation to fund long term space exploration. If, "If" we ever get to Mars it will be a miracle.
It is up to private industry to come up with an inexpensive way to get people into space and even to the moon. Many would pay large $ to just orbit the moon once and return. A space station could be and will be a great staging area for such trips to the moon, or just to "earth-watch". We should all buy stock in any space company we can. That way we can all participate, and maybe some of us will be able to go.

Glenn Parrent, Las Vegas, NV (Sent Wednesday, July 12, 2006 6:44 PM)

As for where our space program might have gone wrong, I think it was probably viewed as a threat to the military complex because it really has the power to unify people behind a common cause. Look at how Apollo 13 was felt across the globe. Look at how Kennedy passionately tried to get the Soviets involved in his own moon program TWICE before his death. Although its success is debatable, the space station was also one of the first projects undertaken by East and West after the cold war… There just aren’t that many engineering projects that nations can work together on and where cooperation can really pay off.

From my understanding, it was the military that insisted the shuttle have the ability to fly long distances upon reentry (cross range) so that it could spy on other countries on the way down. This required huge wings that dramatically limited what the shuttle could carry and how much it cost. Once the shuttle came into service, however, the military was nowhere to be found and this ability was never used. Other – initial – study versions of the shuttle (say like the Grumman H-33 flyback booster system or even a Energia/Buran Soviet system) also seemed to be more cost effective, but were never funded.

Earth isn’t exactly friendly to space flight. It has a mass greater than Venus, Mercury, Mars, Pluto, the Moon, and the asteroid belt combined, which – needless to say – makes it pretty darn hard to get to orbit. Without cooperation and consistent backing we just might be stranded here for good.

Chris (Sent Wednesday, July 12, 2006 9:40 PM)

This success eclipses Virgin Galactic by a long shot.
Maybe NASA will be re-thinking it's mistake in the 90's. Nations should take on this frontier not unlike the Apollo furor of the 60's to finally get things done in space the way they should be getting done!

Thomas Ashby, Calgary (Sent Wednesday, July 12, 2006 9:40 PM)

To Bill Awes - A researcher friend of mine personally verified that cockroaches can survive in a vacuum for extended, and at high G-loads. (He put a cockroach in a centrifuge in a vaccuum chamber for about an hour, and it walked away, albeit a little wobbly.) The point of putting bugs in the prototype module is that lots of people would actually be curious enough to watch a web-cast. Bingo I'm not so sure about.

To Jim Jacks - so what if he has huge plans? You shouldn't think that just because the US and other national governments spent $100 billion on an incomplete space station that it has to cost that, or even a 10th of that. "Lunar cruiser" sounds impossible - until you realize that the energy cost of going from earth to moon orbit is trivial next to that of getting to orbit in the first place. I'd say let him get his modular orbiting hotel built first, then think about getting to lunar orbit - but the technology is definitely within reach. Besides, Wired was always a bit overly-sensational.

Chris H. (Sent Thursday, July 13, 2006 12:36 PM)

To Chris,
I also know of a cockroach vacuum test with a duration of two hours and the cockroaches seemed to survive meaning their guts were partially hanging out and when repressed the guts went halfway back in. Also you can cut off a cockroaches head and it will still 'live' for about 3 days.

Bill Awes (Sent Friday, July 14, 2006 12:17 PM)

As the bigelow inflatable space vehicle travels with a speed of 20'000 miles per hours around its orbit, a single cosmic dust particle in size of a soy bean is enough to perforate and permanently damage the hull of the spacecraft. It would deflate within minutes and loose its shape completely as the air leaks out into space. Anyone inside would get into deep trouble, may be suffocate.

Stefan Flueler (Sent Sunday, August 06, 2006 2:28 AM)

I know that the concept on which the Genesis 1 module is based calls for several layers of strong material that are said to be able to protect against micrometeoroid impacts. I do wonder how the inflatable skin compares with a metal hull ... if someone familiar with this issue happens to check this thread, or if I'm able to get more info on this point, we'll try to expand upon it. But the short answer is that this issue of space impacts has at least been considered in the fabrication of the modules.

Alan Boyle (Sent Sunday, August 06, 2006 3:58 AM)

The LunarLodge is already there. Did you guys miss it? __________________________________ LunarLodge: "The Last Best Space"®

Enis Pevey (Sent Sunday, October 08, 2006 12:22 AM)

We are hoping you will get involved with our mission to redesign a Heavy Lift Vehicle, to be reused as a hotel in space.

Trevor HM Cooper Ottawa Ontario Canada (Sent Friday, November 17, 2006 8:43 AM)

Nice comment was very interesting read this post

Heimy ,NY, USA (Sent Wednesday, October 07, 2009 1:54 PM)

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