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More on Inflatable Space Hotels
StJefferson writes "It's anything but a traditional Budget Suites room, with a price tag projected to be somewhere in the range of US$50,000-100,000 per night. But Bob Bigelow's inflatable space habs will get their first trial next November, and are expected to go into production in 2008. There's even speculation that Bigelow is in talks with Burt Rutan regarding the small problem of getting customers to the door of his high-flying outposts. And the best part? Bigelow's doing this all on his own, as a private entrepreneurial venture. He's only answerable to his wife regarding the wisdom of this investment, and 'so far, she's on board.' Remind you Heinlein fans of anyone?" We've mentioned this guy before.
Cheers,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
What is there to do in space? I would love to go into space but really, what the hell are you supposed to do there once you get bored with taking pictures out the tiny porthole?
Don't get me wrong, I am glad to see that private industry is getting into space since the government is doing it's typical job of constantly cutting funding for science and diverting it to better and more efficient ways to kill people. The question is really how many people can pay to go to space and what will they do there?
These things don't seem to have very thick walls. I always thought the space habitats would eventually be those giant doughnuts or cylinders, because they would have enough material in them to cut the radiation down to something like high altitudes on earth.
I think the first few real spaceships we build will look like two small iron submarines hung from each other via long steel cables, spinning around to make an artificial gravity.
Why would you fly up to some bubble thing washed in radiation ? Unless it was to build the bigger safer one, of course.
Any accountants out there?
Would it be possible to mount some scientific equipment in it, send scientists up for free occasionally, and write a portion off on the corporate taxes?
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
We need a new shuttle.
Do we? Let's think for a moment. They floated the thing up there. It's got enough lift to carry everyone on board. WAIT! I've got an idea! Why don't we build another blimp to get people up and down?
Honestly, it isn't that hard. As Rutan proved, getting up high enough is the least of your concerns. We can easily build cheap and reusable vehicles to do it. The reason why craft like the Space Shuttle are so powerful and complex is that they have to *orbit*. Orbiting is more or less the process of going so fast that you keep missing the Earth. Since this thing is just floating on the atmosphere, there's little need to achieve orbital velocity.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Production costs are almost negligable compared to the amount for R&D, testing and more importantly, certification. Those valves cost that much problably because they were man rated. Man rating things is incredibly expensive. Time and time again, people just want to look at how much things cost to manufacture and try to base cost estimates off of that.
do you mean like the way that we all distanced ourselves from airplanes after the first fatalities? or automobiles?
This work will aid in the development of non-terrestrial ecosystems (which will likely be Living Machines), but we still don't have a solid way to combat bone density loss - and artificial gravity (rotational) systems won't always be feasible. They're great for orbit, but they such for travel. The human proprioceptice system is so sensitve that it can detect inertial differences in the frame of reference. There's probably few better ways to give your entire crew vertigo than to put their bodies into hibernation in a artifical gravity environment that's in motion!
;)
I'll post more as my grad studies develop
.
-shpoffo
Frank Zappa's son is Dweezil.
Moon Unit is his daughter
But yeah, that's what I was wondering.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
Yeah, I realized that after I read the article. I was thinking this was the giant blimp hotels that had recently been discussed. If it really is in orbit, things become more difficult. Bigelow will need to contract with a rocket provider who has a powerful enough launch solution, and he'll need to design a space craft to put on that rocket.
In addition, this could seriously impact the number of people he could take up to his station at a time. The Space Shuttle currently has the most powerful space engines in the World, and it could only take about 50-60 people up in a specially designed cargo module.
Bigelow does have one other option, IF he can get Energia Corp. to buy into it. He could ask Energia to start manufacturing the Energia rockets again. If reactivated, the world would again see a rocket with more power than a Saturn V. He might even be able to convince Energia to revive the Energia/Buran mating, thus saving himself a bundle on designing a space craft, and giving him all the lift power of the Space Shuttle. Then again, I'm not holding my hopes up on this one. He'll probably stick to simple rockets and capsules.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Have you ever seen a gun that fires bullets at up to 14km per second? :~)
:~)
:~)
:~) It is kindof like saying 'how much energy can each fibre absorb before snapping'?
.338 hitting a steel plate, vs. same hitting 20mm of Kevlar THEN hitting a steel plate. Pretty interesting.r s/paper156.pdf
The argument for aluminum is that the hole is small and won't 'unzip' the structure -- which means you can slap a small patch on it if you actually get holed and go about your merry way... unless your suit doesn't work right and you have to borrow your Russian neighbors just to get out the airlock... err, sorry
The inflatable designs are way better than Al... Now. Although foamed aluminum looks damned promising in balistics tests. Heck, even duel layer Al is good. Its just a lot easier to inflate a structure than to assemble one
Also, the tensile strength has little to do with the resistance to puncture. Well, it does and it doesn't. Strain energy is important, which does relate to tensile strength, but not directly. Example being kevlar vs. Carbon: so far as I know nobody makes flexible carbon body armor. Most (if not all?) use kevlar. Kevlar requires more energy to cut than carbon. Just ask someone who works with it how often they need to sharpen the shears
However, there is an interesting aspect to fibre: If it doesn't stop the projectile launched at it, what doesn't disintegrate continues along at the same velocity that it originally impacted with!
The linked PDF below has pretty pictures and descriptions of a
http://www.autodyn.com/autodyn/pape
I realize that they are doing multiple layers here, but I have to wonder about the gas permeability of woven material and/or thin layers of plastic. Does anybody have any data on much gas would be able to escape through such a material in a vacuum?
Even if it is 1/3 as reliable...they could put 3 redundant systems in place and still pay only $3.9 million rather than $100 million. And have plenty of spare parts to swap around...3 systems would be more than 3 times as reliable, as the redundant systems on the ISS recently showed. (Machine 1 has faulty part A, machine 2 has faulty part B, rip part A out of machine 2 and you can have machine 1 working again.) More mass to lift into orbit, of course...it's a minimization problem. However, government projects often seem to miss this, going for a slight improvement in reliability at a large cost increase when more redundant lower reliability components would do just as well at lower cost. Of course, there are some times where you just must have the highest quality possible...
Nope. From the article..
You want a sig? I can get you a sig... Hell, I can get you a sig by 3 o'clock this afternoon... with nail polish.
There have been lots of jokes about zero-g sex.
But there are lots more things to do in an orbital habitat.
R&D into the manufacturing uses of zero-g might fund one orbital habitat. Can we grow crystals with fewer impurities in zero-g than in g? We've got very good at doing it on earth. It's worth doing the experiments. (Have they been tried on shuttle missions?)
Now let's get imaginative. How much would the first zero-g movie cost to make? Apollo 13 had its zero-g scenes shot in the Vomit Comet. How much more could be done with an entire set in zero-g? "Die Hard in Space", anyone?
Once you have a station in LEO how much would an orbital transfer vehicle cost to run? Would an OTV capable of reaching geostationary earth orbit make for cheaper launching of communications satellites? Would launch be cheaper if components were launched and fitted together in orbit? There might be savings if the initial launch could be made cheaper at the cost of a higher failure rate because the failed components wouldn't be used in the final satellite constructions.
Could an orbital repair station be of use? Many satellites have failed because of a a few critical components failing. Is there a repair market? Hell, if these are light enough and you have an OTV, put a habitat in GEO. Repair and refuel satellites in situ.
Those are just off the top of my head and are probably my personal pipe dreams but I think if some imagination is used you'll find there's lots more to it than sex. Bit like the WWW, really.
- Bob Dowling
Those who do not learn from Dilbert are doomed to repeat it.
Well, 62 miles high..
"Since humans are inherently horny, there is no question that some space tourists would take the trip just so they could join the 62-Mile-High Club."
If this was the first thing you thought of, raise your hand?
I thought so.