Slashdot Mirror
Hotel Tycoon Pushes Inflatable Space Stations
heptapod writes "Reclusive millionaire and motel tycoon Robert Bigelow has announced launching inflatable space stations through his personal aerospace firm. He's working off of NASA's TransHab designs and hopes to get launch one as early as November 2005! I'm sure after someone wins the X Prize they'll need someplace to stay the night. I wonder if each inflatable station module won't come with complimentary bibles."
I wonder if each inflatable station module won't come with complimentary bibles.
But will the bibles be inflatable as well?
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Who needs bibles when you could put one of these up there?
It'd be worrying if you saw a sign before leaving with
"bring a bike pump.... your life may depend on it!"
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Two comments and already /.ed. That's gotta be a new record.
WWD4D?
Well, a 5 star hotel is considered the cream of the crop but what about a hotel full of stars? Now that I got your attention, inflateable hotels? What about all space debris floating around up there? I read that there's over 2000 pieces of space junk floating around up there. What would happen if one piece of space debris hit an inflateable part of this hotel? That would definitely be a damper in my vacation plans.
Hotels do not place bibles in the rooms, the Gideons do.
So you'd have to wait for them to visit the place and put some bibles there first.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Rimmer: Kryten, unpack Rachel and get out the puncture repair kit. I AM ALIVE!
BANG!
:)
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
The x-prize is for a sub-orbital shot only. So they won't need a place to stay for a while yet.
Of course, once the proposed yearly x-prize competitions get going (races for height, shortest turnaround etc), it may only be a few years before a private party is able to launch people into actual orbit. Then it will be cool if someone has an of-the-shelf inflatable habitat ready for use.
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
Space debris could be very catastrophic, but the chances of being hit by it are still miniscule (compared to say a launch failure or being killed on the way to the launch pad).
"...also funds the National Institute for Discovery Science, which investigates unexplained phenomena. It is particularly concerned with reports of cattle mutilations associated with UFO-type activity (such as strange lights in the sky). In 1996, Bigelow bought a Utah ranch from a couple who claimed that it had been dogged for years by "anomalous phenomena"; the businessman then installed scientific researchers and surveillance equipment to document activity."
OK then, I am going to trust this guy with my life in a hostile environment. Right.
I will wait until the mark X model is tested. Thank you very much.
what will they inflate them with in the vacuum of space??
Why, aerosol'ed babies, of course. What else would they use? Air?
them's some expensive arse space bibles!
current going rate of $10,000 a pound, I believe the shuttles had? maybe minus an order of magnitude.
you need to make up your mind. A hotel is where you stay when you take your family on vacation, a motel is where you take the hooker you just picked up. If he's a motel tycoon, then I'm bringing my own sheets for the bed when I go on one of those inflatable stations.
The NASA Transhab design uses "multiple layers, which consist of Mylar, Kevlar, Nextel and foam rubber, provide better protection from micrometeorites than a metal shell."
Source
There is quite a bit of info out there about the Transhabs, NASA are taking this quite seriously.
Truly, we need space inflatable jumping castles. Inflatable space stations? Bah!
Just because it's "inflatable" doesn't mean that it can't take a hit. You're not talking about a penny rubber ballon here. Even a rigid structure doesn't take hits well at the velocities encountered in space. And you'd actually have less chance of a breach with low impact collisions with a non-rigid structure. And the 2000 number awfully low, I think that's the activly tracked stuff.
By not having to send up a rigid structure, you can save on weight and space, resulting in considerable savings, as you can send up a larger structure with less assembly in space required.
Besides, by the time you inflate one of these to 1 atmosphere, the pressure difference between that and outside you'll have a very rigid structure. From looking at the articles, parts of the structure are rigid, providing points for preset 'utilities'. The expandable portions would be to provide space.
I don't read AC A human right
If you're livin in a bubble and you haven't got a care
Well, you're gonna be in trouble, cause we're gonna steal your air
Cause what you got is what we need and all we do is dirty deeds
We're the Spaceballs, Watch Out! cause we're the Spaceballs
We're the master of space
Hey, Don't mess around with the Spaceballs!
I don't think this is worthy of an X-Prize so much as a Darwin award.
Well, it would be "a gas". They'd probably be pushed into another (likely very undesirable) orbit or course.
....)
What would REALLy be interesting is to find out if they will take inflatable dolls or REALDOLLS.
Inflatables save space, but REALDOLLS are closer to the real thing, except still inanimate, but articulable. The astro/cosmo/labidonauts would have firm, reliable, pliant company and not break too many rules.
I wonder if some boby will get a test case for this and bring back the weird NASA/Aerospace days, such as when a real live bear was ejected from an airplane to test the ejection system (hmmm, wouldn't a bear's body withstand an ejection better than a human's?), or when monkeys/chimps purportedly were placed into orbit.
Latex, in the FINAL frontier;
these are lurid tales of the inflata-broth(el)-- sexer-prise
her ongoing mission, to seek out
new styles, and stable positions--
to boldly pose...
how no 'nauts have posed before...
(Luuu-rid, lurid- lu-lu-rid
loo-loo-rid, luu-rid, lu-lu-lu-lu-rid...
Yeh, you know what the parod subject is...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
but the lack of gravity might put a slight damper on your plans there.
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
While the X-Prize is a great thing -- and I'm personally crossing the Pacific this weekend to watch SS1's flight on Monday -- the current and upcoming generation of private spacecraft are still a very long way from being able to visit an orbiting hotel.
The good news though is that some companies do have a business plan for how to get from here to there in incremental, low risk, steps, and while making a profit along the way. XCOR, for example, has such a plan, financing later development with suborbital tourist flights and a few small satellite launches and sounding rocket replacement flights.
Scaled Composites may well have such a plan, though they haven't said yet what it is. But a story in today's Dominion Post (Wellington, NZ) originally from the Washington Post) (free registration required) quotes Burt Rutan as saying that suborbital flights are likely to start at US$30k - US$50k and drop to US$8k - US$12k in a second generation vehicle. That's a) a lot lower than the US$98k Space Adventures is planning to sell XCORs initial flights for, and b) indication that Scaled do in fact have an ongoing plan (d'oh).
Providing space? That must be like shipping ice to the north pole. ;-P
Money for nothing, pix for free
The article suggested nitrogen. We already haul compressed air up into orbit. You'd simply have a gas cylinder to provide the pressure.
I don't read AC A human right
I often have fun kicking itinerant evangelists off my property but it would be superb entertainment in orbit
Watch them swell up and pop!
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
If you order from the menu, do they deliver it to you in a space shuttle?
Folks there are plenty of jokes about an inflatable structure but they need not be so fragile as one might think. After all bullet proof vests are largely kevlar.
& co ntent=http%3A//www.spacex.com/falcon_overview.php
Transhab had to deal with the problem of micrometerite impacts same as any manned space structure. Not to mention once you deal with much besides a micrometeorite it dosn't matter what the building material is.
On the positive side this could be a serious boost to private space ventures. This guy wants a 3/4 hab up next year ? Falcon V can boost 4000kg+ to Stations orbit for 12 million if all goes well.
http://www.spacex.com/index.html?section=falcon
If they make this work then in short order they could have a station with more inhabitable volume than ISS for a fraction of the cost.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
I wonder if Dr Irving Schlock from Sluggy Freelance is behind this proposal.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
I saw the headline "Hotel Tycoon Pushes Inflatable Space Stations" and thought it was about a video game (Railroad Tycoon-esque) with hotels where you could build inflatable space hotels too.
Disappointment runs rampant!
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
What about all space debris floating around up there?
may be some will think, these hotels are space debris
I would imagine that, in the low pressure of space (it's not quite a vacuum), even a tiny amount of gas would inflate it quite effectively.
Of course, they still have to fill the thing with air to breathe, so I'm sure they can manage to carry up a little bit more to actually inflate it.
air, :D,
you silly thing
read the manual
... and they protect against sexually transmitted diseases without reducing sensitivity.
Never underestimate the power of gas filled bags. The Mars rovers even use them!
Space, for the most part is an empty environment. Once in space, the aerodynamics of the craft don't matter much. We have very strong synthetic fibers, make huge kevlar-like inflated bubbles. Big enough to dissipate the energy, or deflect the object. Use honeycomb like layers, and it could probably be made from replaceable pieces, in the (I'm thinking, unlikely) event of a puncture.
It would have to be assembled in space, and even large enough to encompase the craft to get to, and for use on the planet surface.
If your going to go anywhere REALLY far away....wear a bubble!
After someone wins the X prize they will be back on the ground very soon, because the X prize is just for 100km altitude, not entering orbit. Entering orbit is very much harder (8 km/s delta-V instead of about 1 km/s). I dare say there will be follow-on competitions (such as the X Prize Cup) but it'll be quite a while before a privately-developed launcher makes it to orbit.
I wonder how the docking mechinism will work. Can't do that without metal.
Perhaps a rubber docking mechinism too?? insane!
Hmmm.....
Sounds more like a space Youth Hostel!
Bring a sleep sack and a TOWEL!
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
They'd already be in heaven, so they'd be in the clear.
-|BlackErtai|-
...equipped with obvious and conveniently located self-destruct button.
Inflatable soft structures might not be such a dumb idea. A stray counter-orbiting bolt that would blow a hole the size of a dinner plate into ISS, would punch two small neat bolt-shaped holes through a soft structure and keep going. Rubber cement, a couple patches, repressurize from storage tanks, problem solved.
For some reason, I get the impressioin it would involve a zipper.
I don't usually post, but I just had to say- somebody mod spacelord down. Seriously, it's not a very good joke.. the "interesting" tag caught me off guard, i wouldn't have bothered if it was "funny"
SpaceShipOne has just entered LEO. Wait a minute. You're not Mike Melville!
No, I'm not. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Hey, do you know where I can find a subway? I sure am hungry.
Someone hates these cans.
People have got to do something at those space-stations right? Here's an idea :
Robert Bigelo : inflatable Gigolo
They'll take a really deep breath before they leave the atmosphere.
Ah, the atmosphere.
NASA has decided that astronaut food rations will now include a large supply of beans.
My understanding is that the modules have a metal docking collar at one end as shown in these two pictures:
Pic 1
Pic 2
...now this! This whole inflatable tech is really taking off!
Reclusive millionaire and motel tycoon Robert Bigelow.....
Male jigalo?
Sue me, it rhymes.
2000 pieces of space junk? That's about the same amount as the pieces of junk I have under my bed. Spread out around the entire planet, they would be far apart.
And will they ship two, or prvide a hermaphoradite to save launch mass?
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Inflatable space stations will go nicely with inflatable space ships:
Is air the answer to space?
Nah, I'll take the extra safe dual layer version please.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
1. Design spaceship
2. Build spaceship
3. ???
4. profit
Sorry, but I just don't believe in this type of plan model so I hope any businesses wanting to go to space have a better plan.
I have been thinking about something similar for a long time, posted recently on:
whynot.net
The idea was based on the thought of carving out space inside an "asteroid", without putting a huge heavy rock close to Earth..
Staalorm
My ex-girlfriend constantly complained about the zero g-spot sex. Now thanks to this guy, my next girlfriend won't complain about it, I can take her to this hotel :)
if only it were.
A blog about stuff.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Obviously you hire some space garbagemen to clean it up.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
http://www.space.com/news/businessmonday_040524.ht ml
Can't wait to see the bubble burst on this one...
flinging poop since 1969
"I wonder if each inflatable station module won't come with complimentary bibles."
Actually hotels sign contracts for the Gideon Bible. I would imagine Budget Suites/Bigelow Properties is under this contract.
The author of the slashdot post may not enjoy reading the Bible, the editor that didn't remove the blatant phishing comment may not enjoy reading the Bible, but there are those of us who do read. Even if it is for diversity rather than spiriutual growth.
I mean honestly, you are either going to have to take some reading material or a gameboy - you're not going to be able to go out on the beach for a stroll or to get a picture with Mickey.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Grrr. You cannot posibly have any idea how angry i get when people blame violence on the existence of a religion
... but, I suppose, if you weren't religious, you wouldn't get so very angry, right?
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
all it takes is one little prick...
I hope they don't use farting :LOL:
Well, yes, but we're talking speeds of kilometres per second out there. By comparison it makes any military sabot ammo seem slow.
Now a larger piece of debris, ok, would probably break through a rigid structure just as well. A glancing hit, on the other hand, might just graze a metal vehicle, but slice a balloon open.
To be clearer about it, my concern isn't as much about metal vs a syntetic membrane, but more along the lines of "what material and how thick will it be?"
I thought the whole reason to use these is, yes, to save weight. However, weight has nothing to do with whether it's rigid or flexible. A rigid piece of balsa wood can be lighter than a flexible piece of spring steel. All that matters is the density of the material, and how much of it do you have.
I.e., to make a bigger room out of inflatable material than the rigid ones we're currently sending up there, and still end up with less weight than those, you have to wonder how. Did they invent a flexible material that's extraordinarily lightweight and resistant and presumably cheap? Or, more likely, they're just planning to have a thin membrane?
Somehow it doesn't exactly make me believe that it'll be a thick armoured structure that can deflect a sharp edged rock.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I can remember a Popular Science cover article on one of these in the 60's. Goodyear Aerospace (I think was doing it.) It was an inflatable wheel type station.
Tom & Jerry did it. It just might work!
^_^
"You are only young once, but you can be immature forever." -www.animemusicvideos.org
Ok, people wrote that hull breaches caused by rubbish in orbit are not an issue, but what about radiation? I would think you need more than a layer of kevlar for shielding against that...
"Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-my-own-Grandpa." - Dr Hubert Farnsworth
I am curious about the Nextel layer. Are the phones crushed and used as a filler or are they layered and overlapped to work like scales?
You'll need to do some praying when all that separates you from life and death is an inflatable space station...
Grrr. You cannot posibly have any idea how angry i get when people blame violence on the existence of a religion.
I take it that you are a religious person so would you be angry enough to get violent?
maybe even INFLATABLE BIBLES!
POP!
You can jam it into the hole that air is leaking out of :)
A goal is a dream with a deadline
"Well, a 5 star hotel is considered the cream of the crop but what about a hotel full of stars?" In other news, Motel 6 has changed their slogan from "We'll leave the light on for you." to "My God, it's full of stars!"
The obvious issue with Gideon Bibles in space would be weight, and the second volume.
The equally obvious solution is Gideon eBibles.
I wonder how the Gideons would position and eBible wrt copyright, DRM, and the like. Any copyright on the Bible has obviously expired, but I presume copyrights on specific (recent, post-Bono) translations may still be in force.
But would you want to 'protect' an eBook when you're being evangelistic about it? Isn't your whole point to get *more* people to read it? Wasn't that part of the original point of publishing?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Because he is using TransHab as his model, he is also using the system designed for protecting it. The cool thing about TransHab is that it's outer shell is made of a ballistic material matrix (including Kevlar, etc.) which is resistent to penetration by micrometorites and is even capable of "bouncing" back from large impacts - like what happened to MIR. Typical Space Station construction (a.k.a. Alumiminum Can Construction) is not able to withstand impacts of that magnitude with out buckling or worse, pressure loss.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
Space debris could be very catastrophic,
Well, put it this way: a pressurized metal container can shatter if you hit it with enough force. An inflated structure would most likely take a pair of small punctures.
Of course, wither way you don't want to be in the way of that micrometeoroid while it's shooting through your space station, but if you're in a metal can, it might be coming at you with additional shrapnel that you've provided.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Suppose instead of two thin membranes with air in the middle this 'bubble' were actually several layers of membranes inflated with a gel capable of sealing any minor impacts. Multiple layers would help to slow the velocity of any object that can penetrate the initial membranes while the gel could congeal around the hole creating a seal. We know the military is working on 'fluid' armor that goes rigid on impact as well.
Such a scenario might actually be safer than the 'tin can' approach as the 'bubble' could heal itself.
I would also be curious if a lead powder suspension could be used in such a gel that could possibly serve as radiation shielding.
I don't think this is ever going to fly (pun intended). There have been so many space tourism ventures and none have come to fruition so far, except the ones started by the Russians with the long ago re-entered and burned Mir space station.
You need the hardware up and running to do this sort of thing without massive financing.
I mean there are plans to build space ladders from earth surface to orbit (forgot the link but you can find it with Google for sure) and what not propellerhead ideas out there. But no final funding.
I believe this when I see some hardware.
If you want free advice for running this kind of operation:
1) Contract the Russians or the French who have excess launch capacity for the greenbacks
2) Design a small module for the ISS
3) Launch it with 1)
4) Send your millionaires up to ISS Mir-style
5) Exchange service agreements with NASA/ESA/Russians for some PR promos
Branson just crossed the channel in a car and GHWB just jumped out of a plane, so I guess the other billionaires are feeling somewhat inadequate.
I say let's see more of this, perhaps as a new reality TV show. Except with middle managers and annointed CEOs doing the dangerous stuff with outsourced safety checking.
Uhmm, those bibles in hotel rooms aren't complimentary... you're supposed to leave them when you leave.
VIII. Thou shalt not steal.
Did you READ it, or just steal it?
You know, there's a snazzy ice hotel in Canada that's rebuilt every year..very expensive, but it gets business. I'm betting it's possible to bring up an oversized super soaker in space and squirt up your very own fancy, personalized ice habitat.
Noedigs should go a visiting and disseminate Humanist (or even athiest) literature, just to keep the playing field level. Of course, the name is unfortunate ... after all, one goes to a hotel specifically because one is looking for Digs ... at least for the night.
But seriously, if a group is going to be distributing a core component of one of the more virilant forms of communicable mental illness (religion), it would behoove humanity to form another group using a similiar vector to disseminate an antidote.
(I wonder how people would feel if fundamentalist muslims were running around putting Korans in hotels, or Mormons putting Books of Mormon in hotels. Keep this up and there won't be any drawer space left for stationary and pens, much less useful literature such as nearby restaurants.)
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
You're not alone. I read the summery to see who was publishing this new game! It really sounds like the plot for a video game: "You're the Hotel Tycoon eager for a monopoly in space! Beat out other hotel chains for that exclusive contract with the X-prize winner to provide affordable suites in the stars (R)."
You can estimate your chances of survival using NASA's model (PC only).
No that guy is doing nasty stuff. First when I click on the link it loads and then loads something else and then I get a message about can't connect to localhost ip address.
And also if you look at the source of the his mirror you will see this at the bottom:
-- I don't buy it, I grow it.
oops slashdot cut of the source of the mirror let me try again:
t eKerry">/html
META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="1;URL=http://zeikfried.no-ip.com/GNAA/Vo
Please note that I had to remove the at the beginning at at the end forslashcode to accept my post.
-- I don't buy it, I grow it.
they will need a place to go when told to "get a room."
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Now I have a place I can take my inflatable girlfriend, and not get shunned.
In Soviet Russia, the hotel inflates YOU!
Worst inflatable hotel EVER.
Of course, the Scientologists are jealous of the Gideons and want to move in on their action. Yep, that's what I want to see when I settle down for a relaxing stay at the Bates motel. [Cue creepy music.]
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Don't think so... Drying out requires the water in the body to go somewhere else. At the temperatures in space this far from the sun, I think a corpsicle is more likely than a mummy.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
I've been looking over the Bigelow patents on USPTO site. Check out "inflatable satelite", "...thermal management" and "spacecraft sleeping berth" for some of the things they have been working on. The most revolutionary item so far seems to be building an inflatable Transhab-type module, but putting the solid core to the edge of the inflated cylinder. The core has two sets of fold-out floor panels that form two floors, plus the core has a vac-safe section. If there is a puncture, the crew can seal it up and evacuate into another section of their station.
Bigelow on USPTO.gov
start saving those frequent-flyer miles,
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
What about all space debris floating around up there?
I read an article a few years ago about a proposal for the space station. Testing apparently indicates that this kind of inflatable capsule is more resistant to debris than a traditional hard capsule.
The chances of being hit by an asteroid particle is very large though. Satelites are hit all the time which is the reason why satelites that have been in orbit for years look very battered.
:-P
A thin inflatable material containing an enormous amount of gas under pressure is an accident waiting to happen. I just hope the thing isn't made of latex
Wouldn't copies of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy be more appropriate?
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
Go ahead and vote Kerry, you fking moron.
Let's just make EVERYONE work for the government, except for those mean ol' corporate CEOs. That'll show 'em, right?
Oooh, oooh, we can all be French then, right? Oui, oui!
Stand up and take some responsibility for your life, instead of having it handed to you.
[sense+1]
Burns^H^H^H^Higelow has a small model airplane and is talking to Smithers.
Burns^H^H^Higelow: Smithers, I've designed a new plane. I call it the Spruce Moose, and it will carry 200 passengers from New York's Idlewild air^H^H^Hspaceport to the Belgian Congo^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H inflatable space station in 17 minutes!
Smithers: That's quite a nice model, sir.
Burns^H^H^H^Higelow: Model?
Burns^H^H^H^Higelow: Now, to the plant^H^H^H^H^Hhotel! We'll take the Spruce Moose! Hop in!
Smithers (looking at the model plane): But, sir....
Burns^H^H^H^Higelow (cocking a gun): I said *hop in...*
Sometimes I wonder how much new Bible translations are driven by archaeology, learning, modern culture, and new translation skills/insights, and how much they're driven by a desire to keep the thing under copyright.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
hmmm.. let me think for a second. Yes! that's right. Stalin, Hitler, Mao.
You can blame violence on religion if you'd like. But the sad reality is we need to look in the mirror to assign blame.
...the chances of being hit by it are still miniscule...
While the chances of the occupants being killed if it did happen are probably 100%. You gotta look at the important angles first. Is it worth the risk?
Yeah, next thing you know, some jackass will start leaving Knoppix liveCDs in the rooms!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
jpaerospace has a feasable looking plan for cheap access to orbit. They are using airships to do most of the work. They claim their timeline is ~7 years for getting one of their ships in orbit.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I am confident that this inflatable space station will use some type of self-sealing layering making it more resiliant than a metal space station.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I didn't read the article, but I think the general idea is to inflate it with something other than air. For example, inflate it with water and let it freeze solid, and the walls double as radiation shielding. That leaves the problem of launch costs for all that water, but it does make construction simple.
looks like this has been slashed. Websites now only responding with an error "MySQL: too many connections." hehe
Damn it I thought this was gonna about a new building/management sim. You know, "Hotel Tycoon"...?
Yeah I thought maybe they were pulling an Alpha Centauri.
Completely work non-safe, and just generally nasty stuff for the redirect!!!
DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK, AND MOD DOWN TO -1 FAST
But the Scientology bible you'd have to pay to read.
Really, it's not such a bad idea. If they can stop micrometeorites as well as a metal frame, that's what really matters. I can't see a good reason why rigidity should be important across the whole station - only at key points, such as docking ports, and perhaps a hollow frame to mount inflatable modules on.
:)
There's another real advantage to this method that hasn't been mentioned yet: radiation shielding. If you build your station out of plastic instead of aluminum, you'll get far better radiation shielding (it's the hydrogen atoms that do the best job!). Furthermore, aluminum is a kind of nasty metal to use in extreme circumstances because as it warps, it stiffens and eventually will break (metal fatigue). I don't know the sort of stresses that a station is subject to, but I'd imagine that at least the day/night temperature changes provide some stress.
Now they just need to get Dr. Schlock involved... he'll know what to do.
Carbon, made, only wants to be unmade.
Bubbles in the Sky is the name of a SF novel written in the 1950's or 1960's by (I think, but don't really know) Poul Andersen. In this book, the large number of workers (both genders) required to build the first space station etc. were housed in inflatables. Some of them finagled ways to stay up and continue working after their tour was over. Over the next year or three, they gradually developed their own oxygen generation capability etc. and closer to self-sufficieny in various ways. They even had their own radio station.
The inflatables were made of a multi-layer plastic that healed itself rapidly - if you sliced it with a knife (not easy, but doable), you could watch it "zip" itself back together. (This might be doable using a form of nanotech molecular design.) So, if a micrometeor struck, it would punch holes in several layers, but the cells where air was lost would collapse together, effectively sealing themselves while they healed.
As these squatters became more self-reliant, officialdom tried to get rid of them, of course. In case someone wants to read the book, I'll not reveal what happens.
I've looked online for this book but haven't had any success.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
The best strategy to protect against impacts is probably to build nested inflatable structures and fill them up with something. Liquid would be best because it doubles as radiation shielding but it's hard to get liquid into orbit. Second best would be multiple layers of kevlar-reinforced whatever which each have gas in between. If they break you go EVA (or perhaps you will go out in a small vehicle with arm holes in the front of it, whatever) and make some patches.
From what I understand there have been assorted fabrics capable of stopping bullets for some time now, I'm sure the technology can be improved to the point where it can stop most micrometeorites. The reason the bulletproof fabric wasn't useful for armor is that the bullet wouldn't penetrate it, but instead you ended up with a hole in your body filled with a bullet wrapped in fabric, not very helpful and probably more damaging than just being shot. However, if you have multiple layers separated by significant pressurized airspace, it just might solve that problem.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Reminded me immediately of the book Neuromancer, where a "hotel tycoon" set up his own personal resort in space - free from duties, taxes and the government. It was a lawless paradise.
:)
I just want to get into space, and if these dudes will front the money, I'll be sure to pay them back
lets go science fiction! With the invisibility cloak, the unscratchable metal and electronic ink pads, I'm ready.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
I also recall (from the 1960's) an SF story with colonists arriving on some planet and building their houses & buildings out of foam. This wasn't in space, but it could have been. A "thick" shell of two or more layers of some self-healing plastic with a semi-rigid foam in between might be quite workable, especially if there were some mechanism for foam that leaks out to harden into the shell. Perhaps something as simple as making the foam's with two plasticizers, one with a high volatility, so exposure to vacuum would cause that plasticizer to evaporate, turning that bit of foam into the shell.
Of course, the evaporating plasticizer would coat the optics of nearby observation equipment with goo, ruining the system and eliminating the purpose of the habitat - Murphy's Law.
I worked on a couple of foam houses myself in Portland OR - "House of the Year 2000" in the 1971 Portland Home Show.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
I believe that you're referring to RST's (Radiation Shield Technology) product Demron. It is not a film, it is a fabric, not quite the film that you referred to, but the closest I could find.
Who needs 'big aerospace' anyway? :)
Hard vacuum is only one negative atmosphere of relative pressure, 14.7 psi. A small leak would be loud but manageable. Explosive decompression could only happen through a large hole.
If you keep them to yourself, they're obviously not that strong.
-Lucas
Ah, I see you've seen me in my Speedo...
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Sure they are, all the MS-Windows guys get viruses downloading pr0n. That counts, right
Mod this up as funny............. and pray for me... I'll ask my imaginary friend to bless you as well
parentpost: ... but, I suppose, if you weren't religious, you wouldn't get so very angry, right?
That was the most insightful thing I ever read on /.
All at once it both explained and gave an excellent example of how overly-serious religious beliefs quickly result in anger.
If you got mod points, this guy deserves some.
I got a bottle of super duper amazingly potent homeopathic water for you. Cures everything from cancer to bed wetting. Only $74.95.
That's right. All your base.
Freebies to take next time visitting a hotel:
1) Lotion
2) Shampoo
3) Conditioner
4) Razor
5) Shaving cream
6) Toothbrush
7) Bible
8) Towels
9) Remote Control
I'm in a building named for the guy. No its not inflatable, however, it IS the Physics building at my school.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
1 large (cost varies as meters squared; income varies as meters cubed)
2 modular (when disaster strikes, there is somewhere to go)
3 low pressure (keeps down cost in a number of ways)
4 self healing (it WILL be hit by debris)
5 inexpensive (success means profitable; so more will be built)
6 sells ad space (ie doubles as a billboard in space)
Interestingly enough, the way that collisions in space happen is this:
1. Object A reaches Object B
2. Object A and approximately Object A's mass of object B are vaporized
3. The kinetic energy is absorbed in subsequent collisions
The way space amour is designed now is to have a first thin layer to handle step 1+2, and then have a second layer (placed as far away as possible from the first layer), to handle step 3. By spacing it out, the inner layer allows the metal vapor to expand, so when it hits it doesn't hit as hard (and therefore doesn't puncture the inner layer).
An inflatable space station (or something like that) would actually have inherently better amour per mass lifted than a normal design, because A) the gap could be larger, and B) the gap is filled with a substance that would help spread the impact further. Of course, you will need to patch things up after a hit, and have redundant paths for handling the load, but all in all it does work better then alluminum shielding, and was seriously considered for the current space station design.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
Only if you consider Atheism a religeon.
There are some serious Atheist zealots out there too.
It's gernerally not religeons that cause wars...it's bad practitioners of a given religeon. If not for religeon they'd find some other reason to kill each other...taking away their religeon does not make them more intelligent or peaceful. It just makes them non-religeous. (Which lets be honest...that is the average leftist slashdotters wet dream...why, I will never understand.)
Sorry, but there are a lot of very religious people who believe their faith is a private and personal matter between themselves and God -- more than you think, because, after all, they keep their faith to themselves. Quakers are a good example (and read Matthew 5 and 6 in this context), but you can find such in all denominations and faiths.
I figure that when Bill Gates gets to be old enough to feel the pains of decrepitude, then he will jump at a chance to fund such a project--and so will lots of other rich millionaires. The only question will be: can I afford it?
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
"Therapeutic heating and cooling via temperature management of a colon-inserted balloon" ... Yeah, my space hotel room better just have an AC and heater, not one of those...
All joking aside I'm impressed and wish this guy the best of luck. Combining his ideas and money with JP Aerospace's launcher system should provide space travel on the cheap.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
I'm not looking to sign up neccesarily, just curious... :-)
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
"I wonder if each inflatable station module won't come with complimentary bibles."
All I can say is that if staying in space station isn't an awe-inspiring experience with or without a Bible, I don't know that I'm interested in going.
Tweet, tweet.
As others have already pointed out, the stuff you are referring to is Demron, manufactured by RST. When I first heard of it a year or so ago I found their claim regarding its extraordinary X-ray absorbing capability very hard to believe in the light of well-established physical model of the absorption of EM radiation by matter. The report published by Lawrence Livermore Lab. was funded by RST and the author did not respond to my request for a scientific explanation.
Until the results have been independently verified and published in a peer-reviewed journal, or else verified by myself, I will continue to have grave doubts concerning their claim. (IIAP and part of my job is monitoring the radiation safety of X-ray emitting apparatus.)
For free ebibles, go to http://www.crosswire.org/sword/modules/ModDisp.jsp ?modType=Bibles
The hotel guests will go to their window to see the staggering view of the earth. Instead they are greeted with a stunning view of the inflatable McDonalds that just went up across from the hotel. Hey at least weight won't be a problem until they come home.
There's another real advantage to this method that hasn't been mentioned yet: radiation shielding. If you build your station out of plastic instead of aluminum, you'll get far better radiation shielding (it's the hydrogen atoms that do the best job!).
Depends on the type of radiation being shielded against. High-Z is better for gamma shielding (and shielding against secondary x-rays from other types of radiation, though using low-Z reduces the amount of this). You also have a bulk disadvantage with low-Z materials (though in space, it's weight and not bulk that matters, so you're stuck no matter what).
Furthermore, aluminum is a kind of nasty metal to use in extreme circumstances because as it warps, it stiffens and eventually will break (metal fatigue).
Aluminum itself has very low fatigue strength, but in practice aluminum alloys with better characteristics are used. Google for "duraluminum", an alloy commonly used for aircraft, for one example.
For space uses, the cost of launch dominates over the cost of materials, so you can afford to use as expensive an alloy or composite as you like in the structure. Materials problems typically occur due to design oversight (e.g. carbon composites being etched away by the atmosphere), as opposed to cheap materials being used.
Inflatable stations are still an interesting idea, though. If I recall correctly, the "Cosmos" solar sail was going to be inflatable, to save on mass (a rigid craft would have to be sturdy enough to survive launch, requiring extra mass).
Matthew 5 & 6 you say? You might reread that portion about the "light of the world" and "salt of the earth".
SHUT UP! For crying out loud! Do you have NOTHING better to think about? Yeah, yeah, Python's great, so just program in it already. Stop feeling the need to tell me about everything you do in Python, insist I should do whatever I'm doing in Python, etc, etc.
(Calm blue ocean. Calm blue ocean.)
Something can be great and important to you without you needing to molest others on the subject.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
With all of the space junk floating around up there (nuts, bolts, bits of paint, shards of metal, etc...) his inflatable space station would be Swiss cheese in a matter of days. Just ask NASA how many times the IIS has been hit (the modules are protected by layers of Kevlar to guard against just these types of impacts).
Real proof does exist. Have you prayed and asked if he does or does not exist? Don't you think a grand, intelligent being would reveal himself to you if you asked? He spoke to Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and countless other prophets of all nationalities. Why not you?
I don't buy this idea that God doesn't want to reveal himself to those who are willing. If that were true he would've removed all references to himself from the world, and we wouldn't even have a concept of God.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
PDF format!
You're forgetting Deformation. The tin can is going to deform even from a glancing hit, and will likely loose seal.
As far as glancing hits go, the balloon's a multiple layer construction consisting of mylar, kevlar, rubber, and some ceramic 'cloth'. It has to pass the very same tests that a rigid structure does.
I don't read AC A human right
Space debris could be very catastrophic, but the chances of being hit by it are still miniscule
Yeah!.. But it wouldn't even need to be the size of a house to cause a problem.
True. Layering is exactly what you need. And not just for impact protection.
:( ) and have been doing some research for the last year. I was actually going to pitch the idea to ESTEC for a prelimenary research working study for the summer. Damnit, just goes to show you should never procastrinate!
See, you not only need a kevlar-like layer and a sealant layer, but also a radiation-shielding layer, an isolating layer (gotta keep that oxegen in!) and an insulating layer (gotta keep the heat where it's needed!). Also you'd preferably have a 'spacing layer' (aerogel?) which separates the kevalr from the rest of the layers, so it has space to stretch in when hit. Plus you need a layer which keeps the different materials/fabrics from loosing it's shedded threads (they can play havok with machinery) and multiple layers of the aforementioned materials.
What really pisses me off is that I've been thinking about inflatable space stations for a couple of years now (prior art in my sketchbook/journal
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
When you can bring an inflatable church along too.
Zero-G jumping castles! :D
Will it be shaped like teh USS Enterprise or DS9? No? Nothing to see here then.
I went through the whole thread, and found nothing modded above "1" that made wisecracks about inflatable Love Dolls in space.
I find this excessive maturity and seriousness on
Fundamentalism is a crime against humanity
The parent is surely referring to the use Christians make of Leviticus to support prohibitions against things like abortion and homosexuality while feeling free to eat pork.
The bible isn't terribly consistent, and even if it were it would be a simple matter to play games of sophistry that pit one quotation against another. You can sit around for years discussing these questions. Indeed, the Catholic church has spent nearly two millenia on it.
That's not really a problem with Christians, though. You just can't fit all the answers to life in a fairly slim book. It's really tough understanding text written for a nomadic desert tribe. I mean, my goodness, when you do commit any of the dietary or hygiene sins, you're supposed to sacrifice two sheep, or if sheep are not available , two doves. One for a burnt offering, one for a peace offering, IIRC.
So no, "consistency has never been a strong point with christians" is not a blanket statement with the same validity as "All middle eastern people are terrorists." It's just a half truth... consistency has never been a strong point with human beings. Christians are no exception.
Consistency is virtually impossible in the face of a self-contradictory text. Consistency isn't even necessarily very important.
Mod Parent up!!! I agree with you 300%!!
I think this is all very exciting! I, too, very much like the idea of inflatable space stations orbiting the earth, with people living in them.
How long do you think it will be until we start to see:
"Anybody can change the world, but most people probably shouldn't." -- Marge Simpson
The company is Radiation Shield Technologies and Demron is name of the product. It is up to them to point others to credible independent proof of their claims if there is any. As you can see here: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/0211/msg00186.ht ml I'm not the only skeptical pro. IAAP (=physicist); sorry about the typo in my previous post.
Wow! Thanks for the reply!
Moving difficult-to-produce finished goods (like complicated machinery and semiconductor products and so forth) from Earth to the building site could be done with a space elevator or with mature chemical launchers. Most of the cost of current space launches is the cost of manufacture and infrastructure for spacecraft, not the cost of fuel. Once materials and techniques advance to the point where launch craft are mature commodity items, and fuel dominates launch cost, it becomes practical to lift machinery, people, and construction craft up.
At this point, colonization of space will begin.
This is a very good point, i.e., that we will start to colonize space once the way to get into space becomes "a commodity," which it arguably is not at the moment.
Why rockets? Are space elevators the only alternative?
Good point about launchers not being to the point that fuel is the critical cost element. I would be interested in more details on the engineering and economics of space elevators, too, by the way.
It seems to me that there is not much attention being given to the idea of large, flying disk/wing aircraft that could fly up to high altitudes and then switch to rocket propulsion as a means for lifting large payloads on a reliable, safe, and regular schedule. The commercial aerospace industry is pretty close to the "fuel as the primary cost" situation which you mention.
Is this notion fundamentally flawed in some way; is there something I'm not seeing?
Popular Mechanics did a cover story about lenticular aircraft, and there are lots of other articles there, too. Apparently the Nazis did a lot of work on this, and after WWII the Air Force got all the technology and has been secretly working on it ever since. The point being that these things can be very big, and the whole fuselage is a lift-providing surface, so they could potentially carry a lot of material and still be able to stay aloft in the upper atmosphere. I wrote a little blurb about the space shuttle, winged vs. lenticular aircraft, etc., which might elicit some comment, by the way.
I assume that getting out of the atmosphere is not a problem as far as frictional heating of the outer skin of the craft goes, but getting back in would be an issue since it would be slowing down from orbital velocities to upper-atmospheric cruising speeds, so part or all of the skin of the craft would have to be covered with some kind of heat-management material (like the tiles on the space shuttle) or some kind of "active" heat evacuation system.
"In the future, it will take two hours to get anywhere on the planet -- one hour to get there, and one hour to get to the airport." -- Robert McNamarra
In this vein, can we imagine trans-atmospheric aircraft taking off from airports on Earth, flying out of the atmosphere into orbit, and then returning to Earth at another airport? Or, even better, in some cases rendez-vousing with an orbiting airport-spacestation, disembarking and picking up transit passengers, and then returning to Earth? It currently takes 18 hours just to fly from LAX to New Zealand, and many people take much longer flights -- that's plenty of time to get into orbit, dock with an orbiting spaceport/hotel, maybe sta
"Anybody can change the world, but most people probably shouldn't." -- Marge Simpson
A couple of other notes on elevators:
You're only using a 10,000 T elevator because if it's ever cut, it impacts with a yield of about 7 times its weight in TNT. While you can design it so that naturally occurring failure modes won't cause the whole thing to come down (or even much at all of it), sabotage is a real enough concern that you don't want to drop a _million_ tonnes of elevator on the planet. Incompetence is also a potential failure source (there's a raised highway around here that they only started repairing _after_ chunks of concrete fell down on to cars running beneath it - it's always politically better to delay repairs just another year).
There are other styles of ground-to-orbit device besides elevators. Skyhooks are one of the more popular. The problem is that the stresses on a rotating skyhook that has a tip moving at ground speed at ground level are comparable to those on a space elevator, so the materials problems end up being the same. For travelling between orbits in space, they're easier to build, but you could just as easily use high-Isp electric drives and avoid the investment in the first place. So, I'm not sure skyhooks are a good idea to build (an elevator has less administrative overhead). Might be possible to have higher throughput, though.
Thanks again. It sounds like the delta-v issue puts the kybosh on using airplanes to get into space. It all comes back to rockets, again...
Let me just make sure I'm clear on some terms and concepts. Isp means specific impulse or something? Is "delta-v" the same as acceleration, or just that you have to get from sitting still on the earth to 8km/sec in a short period of time to get to orbit? Is 8km/sec escape velocity, by the way? If so, then am I right in saying that 8km/sec is about 28,800 km/hr, and that's about 25 or so times the speed of sound, or Mach 25, which means you need to be going Mach 25 to get into and stay in orbit?
And this is way faster than airplanes go, hence the problem that an airplane fails to solve.
So, in the end, lifting a lot of mass into space from the earth is a big problem, so at some point, infrastructure in space in the form of mining and manufacturing of the heavy stuff has to be put in place, as well as finding the water, carbon, and probably the air for the colonies. We only want to have to shoot up the actual (initial) humans, animals, and plant seeds and such, and somehow find or make the rest of the stuff out there.
How to get that process somehow started seems to be crucial to the question of getting viable off-earth colonies going. Is that a fair statement?
"Anybody can change the world, but most people probably shouldn't." -- Marge Simpson
In practice, Isp times 10 is about equal to your exhaust velocity, and every multiple of your exhaust velocity adds a ratio of 1/e to your dry:wet weight ratio. So, a rocket with a fuel with an Isp of 250 that wanted to go at 8 km/sec would need a delta-v of 3.2x its exhaust velocity (8000 / 2500), for a mass fraction of about 4% (e^-3.2) - i.e., 96% fuel, 4% structure plus cargo plus crew.
I'm not sure I perfectly follow this, so let me try to clarify a bit. For any rocket wanting to get into orbit, a delta-v of 8 km/sec is required, is that right? And in practice the exhaust velocity of the fuel is ten times the specific impulse, which, when divided into the required delta-v (for orbit) yields the multiple (or power?) of 1/e which gives the dry:wet ratio, is that right?
In other words, the delta-v is a fixed quantity for a given orbit, and the exhaust velocity of the fuel is also fixed (in practice 10 times the Isp), and that becomes the exponent on 1/e to yield the dry:wet ratio for the spaceship, right?
I take it that given some "wonder fuel" that provided an Isp of 800 (an exhaust velocity of 8000 km/sec), the launch weight of the fuel would only need to be 63% of the total mass of the craft, is that right?
This 1/e business sounds like it comes from a solution to some sort of definite integral with respect to time and mass of the rocket equation. Does that mean that this 1/e to the power of the delta-v over exhaust velocity only applies directly to single-stage rockets, and that the situation would be improved for multi-stage rockets?
The effect of a higher exhaust velocity is not only a higher impulse, but also the fact that you're ejecting your fuel at a higher rate, thereby lightening your launch vehicle as it flies at a faster rate, which basically translates into a higher overall effeciency. Is that a fair statement?
Just to ramble on a bit further...
The impulse provided by a given fuel depends upon how much fuel mass is ejected, and at what velocity, and for how long (F = mv, times time). This is all tied up in the chemical properties of the fuel and the engine that burns it, e.g., how massive are the ejected burned fuel molecules, how fast does it burn, and how fast does it get blasted out of the engine as it does, etc.
So, hydrogen is a light molecule, but it burns pretty well. What about something like a liquid sodium and flourine or chrlorine engine? Ignoring storage, melting-the-engine, possible pollution problems for the moment, would these fuels be better because the ejected fuel molecules are more massive, or is the reverse true? It seems to me that if such a fuel could provide the same exhaust velocity as hydrogen-oxygen, they would be better since there would be fewer total chemical reactions for the same mass of fuel, so you'd go through the fuel quicker for more initial thrust. Or is that barking up the wrong tree for some reason? I would be interested to hear if NaCl or NaF fuels had ever been considered by anyone.
One final thought: I assume that there is a limit to how great of a "wonder fuel" you could use for launches of human cargoes, since the ideal seems to be getting a lot of acceleration right at the start right away, and that brings you back to the problem of launching humans with rail guns, i.e., the acceleration would be fatal, and so you're stuck to a certain extent hauling a large part of the fuel for a large part of the flight just to provide a reasonably gradual acceleration as opposed to a big jerk at the beginning.
"Anybody can change the world, but most people probably shouldn't." -- Marge Simpson
Yes, I have certainly found this thread to be useful and informative! Hopefully I will be able to avoid making any stupid gaffes in any future postings, short stories or books I may try to write in the domain.
Hydrogen still takes enough fuel tank mass overhead that it's questionable whether it's worth it as a fuel, though (hydrocarbons are stored at much higher density, meaning a smaller tank and less craft weight).
So, are there any good hydrocarbon fuels that have comparable Isp to hydrogen? What makes a good hydrocarbon rocket fuel? What are the downsides of using hydrocarbon fuels? Why does liquid hydrogen seem to win in the end?
The NASA Space Shuttle uses solid rocket boosters, and I had gathered that these use some kind of hydrocarbon fuel or other. What's in them and what's good/bad about them?
"Anybody can change the world, but most people probably shouldn't." -- Marge Simpson
What does NERVA stand for, by the way? Why is hydrogen the best, here? Would another liquified gas, such as nitrogen, also be good? I would think it would be easier to deal with -- as you alluded to in one of your comments about hydrogen tank mass, etc., that make hydrogen problematic.
What's the deal with engine components having to be at the exhaust temperature? Wouldn't this almost always be true, since the fuel is going through and combusting inside the engine, or is there more to this?
"Anybody can change the world, but most people probably shouldn't." -- Marge Simpson
The actual problem is the vertical part of the boost phase, as acceleration spent to counter gravitational acceleration is wasted (doesn't contribute to orbital velocity). Because of this, it's helpful to boost as strongly as possible during the vertical phase of launch. This is only about 1.5-2 km/sec of the launch delta-v, though, and at 4 gravities, you're only getting about a 30% penalty (thrust at 4 gravities, accelerate upwards at 3).
I see. This would be the main reason that an upper atmospheric launch would be of some benefit, is that right?
If you're already in the upper atmosphere, it's even less of a problem, as you can afford to thrust laterally (air resistance won't slow you down much). Boosting at a shallow angle from the horizontal still gives most of your thrust laterally, meaning the one gravity vertical acceleration costs you less than it otherwise would (draw a vector diagram and use the pythagorean theorem to get vector magnitudes to see how this works).
So, if you had a big enough aircraft that could lift enough to haul all of the fuel needed to add on the last Mach 20-25 of delta-v and the spacecraft into the upper atmosphere, you could launch from there with a nearly-horizontal trajectory and save the lost acceleration during the lift phase of a ground launch. I would imagine that a problem with this is that there are no such aircraft available at this time.
You also mentioned balloon launches. I keep imagining lenticular vehicles, perhaps with jettisonable SRBs attached, that would be lifted to altitude by balloons or by other really large lenticular aircraft, and then started up once in the upper atmosphere to make the trip to orbit.
Thanks again for all your great postings!
"Anybody can change the world, but most people probably shouldn't." -- Marge Simpson
Thanks! I found that NERVA is also an acronym for Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application , as well as being a Roman Emperor.
Living in Japan, I guess I sometimes feel a little disempowered when it comes to looking things up for some reason. Must work on that... ;-)
Here's another good link about nuclear engines for space, by the way.
"Anybody can change the world, but most people probably shouldn't." -- Marge Simpson