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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."
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.
My understanding is that the modules have a metal docking collar at one end as shown in these two pictures:
Pic 1
Pic 2
I've been on another board with a member of the Gideon Society. Their purpose is to provide transients (hotels, military, prisons, and such) with a copy of the Bible. It costs about $5 US for a hardcover Bible and $1.50 US for a New Testament. Each Bible lasts 6 years on the average and is read 400 to 500 times.
The Gideons are funded by contributions from local churches. There is no mandate for a motel to carry a Gideon Bible; the Marriots, for example, put their own Bibles and a copy of the Book of Mormon in every room. Some hotels don't put them in. Many others do. Since hotels are private property, it is their right.
I've gone to hotels and I've seen the Gideon books defaced, torn, and with stickers added by militant atheists. What a fruitless thing to do! In many ways, what a cruel thing to do when someone is in distress, or wishes a quiet moment reflecting on God.
So, if a space traveler wants to read a Gideon Bible in orbit, I'll be glad to pay the freighting fees to get him one. Of course, a downloaded version would be easier to send.
DISCLAIMER: I am an evangelical Christian. I don't see any problem dealing with matters of faith and science. I'm writing articles and books about it for both the evangelical and non-evangelical community.
Nyekulturniy... Proudly confusing readers and editors since 1981!
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.
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.)