Bigelow said "we feel we are ahead of schedule" on his plans to have a commercial space complex in orbit by 2015. The current projection is that a Bigelow-built orbital station could be ready in the 2010-2012 time frame, assuming that other companies can develop safe, economical and reliable rockets to put payloads and people into orbit by that time.
And beyond that, Bigelow said "we definitely have a lunar architecture in mind." Inflatable modules could be assembled en route to the moon, plunked down on the lunar surface, then covered over with moondirt to provide protection against radiation. Although such an application is probably years down the road, Bigelow and his engineers are already laying the groundwork here on Earth.
"We're going to be testing that, we hope, this year over one of our steel simulators," Bigelow said.
Alan Boyle / MSNBC.com |
A full-size air bladder for a Nautilus module stands inside Building A.
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We didn't get to see those simulators today, but we were treated to a tour of other Bigelow facilities by Haakonstad, Pierson and Jay Ingham, design team leader. We started out in the darkened mission control room, in a walled-off section of Building A, where two or three controllers monitored spacecraft telemetry. On the walls, giant TV screens displaying Genesis 1's ground track and not-yet-published pictures of the spacecraft interior (including a snapshot of cockroaches inside a life-support experiment).
James Oberg / MSNBC.com |
Erik Haakonstad and Alan Boyle size up
a Genesis-scale test module.
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Then we headed out and around a corner to the other half of Building A, past a fully inflated test bladder for the future Nautilus module.
When I tried to take an overall shot of a machine shop, a security officer quickly called a halt - and insisted on watching as I hit the "delete" button for the offending image.
But it all ended with good humor and a handshake, and we had our picture taken with our arms around each other's shoulders.
Other highlights included:
- A close-up look at Genesis test modules sitting in the machine shop. One module was double-wound with straps that held a partially inflated bladder in place. When I banged my hand against the side, it thumped hard as if I were playing a drum.
- A visit to the 26-foot-deep outdoor pool where test inflatables are immersed for stress testing. The pool was only partially filled today, but the blue water looked positively inviting in the 90-degree-plus heat.
- A stop at Building B, where Bigelow maintains a museum of module mockups, artist's conceptions dating back to 2001 - and a full-scale mockup of three linked Nautilus modules. We climbed inside the complex, outfitted for three levels of living space. Each level had a lattice of straps as a floor - which would serve better than a solid floor for handholds and footholds in zero-G, Haakonstad said.
But where was the real Genesis 2? Well, Haakonstad said that spacecraft was still taking shape, and the integration facility where engineers are working on the actual items for flight is in another section of Building B - a section that was off-limits to us. Even now, some secrets have to remain secrets.
"We're trying to protect the very valuable stuff that we're working on," Bigelow told us.
Stay tuned for more about Bigelow Aerospace, once I put the rest of my notes in order. And for a look at yet another nexus of space commercialization, check out this archived report on SpaceX's rocket factory.
Update for July 21, 6:50 p.m. ET: Due to a publishing glitch, our presentation of the first videos from Genesis 1 was out of commission for the past couple of days. I just wanted to pass along the word that the video is back in service. Sorry about the initial failure to launch.
Also, you'll find additional perspectives on the Bigelow Tour from Clark Lindsey at RLV and Space Transport News, Jeff Foust at Personal Spaceflight and Leonard David at Space.com.
