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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.
Bigelow has put a lot of thought into what space tourists would do while they're up there--everything from laser light shows on the dark side of the moon to phone calls placed to envious friends back home, to short space walks.
Phone call to friend: "Hey man, I am watching a KILLER laser light show at a Pink Floyd concert where they are playing on the dark side of the moon!"
MOONUNIT 555-555-1969
Friend: "The spoofed CallerID from your VoIP Asterik box is getting old and lay off the acid man, you're going to rot your brain. Next you are going to be telling me that you paid $1 million to spend a weekend in an inflatable hotel room in space."
But the question on everyone's minds is:
Will it be full of colourful balls and do you have to take your shoes off before going in?
"Curiouser and Curiouser" - Alice
Cheers,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
include a Free Continental breakfast, or I'm not going.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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?
200 mile high club?
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I hope the material they use is micro-meteorite proof.
--<POP>--
-- bleep - bleep - bleep
If they would make that and NASA used it, they would be plenty rich with all the fame to go with it.
Without that, their inventions are like thought experiments... they'd be better off conducting the Schrodinger's Cat experiment with two ants.
The only thing more dangerous than a file named -rf is renaming it -rf\ /
The first test flight of Bigelow Aerospace will use the cheap Falcon V launcher that is currently developed by Elon Musk, the former owner of paypal. So there is a good cooperation between the different private companies in the alt.space community.
Private property is the central institution of a free society (David Friedman)
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.
It's good to finally see some of the benefits of the capitalist system making their way into attempts at space travel. I imagine Bigelow (and the people running SpaceShipOne, and any other Entrepreneurs In Space) will achieve better and faster results, too, since his (their) own money is on the line...which is kind of the point of letting the money run things instead of doing it because the government wants to put a flag on the moon just to stick it to those commie Russians.
Bob Bigelow? Thats a used car salesman name if I've ever heard one. Coming soon: Bob Bigelow's used inflatable Space habitats.
Pea...tear...Griffin? Yea, yea, Peter Griffin.
I wonder what sorta deals priceline.com will offer?
.00
1-Star Space Orbital
4-Star Deluxe
3-Star Upscale
2½-Star Moderate-Plus
2-Star Moderate
1-Star Economy
Name Your Own Price $
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
"I hope the material they use is micro-meteorite proof."
they have that covered... they're bringing a micro-bruce-willis
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
I think accidents will not be a big deal. People risk their lives for all kinds of crazy shit like climbing the mount everest, so why should they not be allowed to risk their lives to live in space?
Early aviation history is full of deadly accidents. And people have still continued to build and fly airplanes.
If some nanny state government like the peoples republic of california will outlaw private space flight, the development will simply move somewhere else. Even if private spaceflight is outlawed in the whole US, there are other countries in the world.
Private property is the central institution of a free society (David Friedman)
do you mean like the way that we all distanced ourselves from airplanes after the first fatalities? or automobiles?
Yes, just like the first boat out of Europe in the 15th century that sunk or the first European scalped by an Indian froze in terror the heart of Europeans everywhere and made them stay home.
When did people become such cowards? Our ancestors would be ashamed that a few deaths shutdown exploration everywhere. God how I hate the 21st century.
I hope they find a way to get the stink of sex out of those things... perhaps after every visitor depressurize it into space or something.
peace,
-Grokent
the phrase 'space hotel' and variants like 'spays hotale' to the block words in your spam blocker
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
I wonder if they'll have inflatable escorts?
:)
Some slashdotters will feel right at home
"I'm not a procrastinator, I'm temporally challenged"
So why is Burt Rutan suddenly the go-to guy for all things space-related
It's kind of like the Wrights and Curtis becoming "go to" guys for travel, even though they could move maybe two people 50 miles and everyone knew that Cunard Lines and Leland Stanford's railroads could actually accomplish real transportation.
An alliance between pioneers in a field only makes sense; who's to say Rutan won't have an orbital vehicle in 10 years? Be kind of useless without a destination.
Another origin of things like the $500 hammer, is almost always lineitem allocation of overhead.
Suppose NASA contracts to Missile And Rocket Systems to provide some enormous system, including among other things: A rocket engine, and a hammer. MARS subcontracts out the rocket engine and a hammer to Engines and Hammers, Inc. E&H bills MARS $1,000,005 for one rocket engine ($1,000,000) and one hammer ($5).
MARS adds their 10% overhead for managing the E&H contract, and bills NASA at $1,100,006. Now, because of a policy called Line-item allocation, the overhead has to be prorated, not over the COST of the contract lineitems, but the COUNT ... So, the $100,001 in overhead gets divided in two ... the rocket engine cost NASA $1,050,000 .. and the hammer a staggering $50,006!
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
So why is Burt Rutan suddenly the go-to guy for all things space-related
Because, while what he has achieved might not be everything, nobody else has achieved more without government backing.
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.
Except that neither this hotel nor the ISS are in geo sync, they are in low earth orbit.
It is HARD to read geosync - that is why you did not see the shuttle going up to fix or retrieve broken communications sats, as the delta-V needed far exceeds the shuttle's ability.
www.eFax.com are spammers
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
Yes, Spaceship One is not a Spaceship, it's a Spaceplane, true. NASA confirms this in their article on their own space plane, which bested spaceship one's mark forty years ago for roughly the same amount of money (adjusted for inflation) but without all the near-death control problems.
But you're missing the point. Yes, they still need orders of magnitude more power to reach orbit, and YES, they haven't solved any of the major problems relating to actual spaceflight. And yes, all they have to do to solve their engineering problems is call NASA, because it's all been done before.
But what you're missing is, everyone has to start somewhere. And this is capitalism's first, impressive start.
Get a grip!
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
TransHab was killed because of politics, pure and simple. Congress was so irate at the cost overruns of the ISS that they stupidly forbade NASA from doing any further research or development on inflatable structures. The Houston Press did a story on this a few years ago.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight. ;-)
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
Private sector access to space is nowhere NEAR ready! A "Space Hotel" needs to be placed in ORBIT, not just the 100km flea jump the X prize needs. Rutan's SS1 will almost certainly win the X prize in the near future, but it was designed SPECIFICALLY to win the X prize & is a dead end for access to orbit. Other entrants in the X prize such as Xcor & Armadillo may be beaten to the punch by SS1, but they have a much better chance of being adaptable to an orbital rocket.
SS1 reaches Mach 3 at maximum speed. Even if you could swap the rocket motor in SS1 with one which can reach orbit, neither SS1 nor it's mothership are big enough to carry it. In order to attain orbit Mach 25+ is needed and the difficulties (notably thermal protection issues) mount at the cube of the mach. Reentry heating is almost a non issue for SS1, but as the last shuttle flight showed is A MAJOR PROBLEM when returning from orbit.
I wish it was different but we'll need at least another decade & probably more before private access to space become a reality beyond the souped up sounding rockets that the X prize contestants represent.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
but is there wifi and will my powerbook work up there?
A guy is in space for 6 months... his testicles are still working, right? They have to have some solution, or they'd just have a bunch of nocturnal emissions on their space blankets.
Yes this is a silly question, but I'm not trying to make a joke, I am genuinely curious.
The only thing more dangerous than a file named -rf is renaming it -rf\ /
Ok, with all the hype about a mile high club, what are the odds that people will pay $100k/night to boink in zero or near-zero gravity?
It sure as hell sounds more fun than going to Niagara Falls...
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
100k per night for a hotel room you can afford to blow another 100k on a few hookers and a penguin and fuck your brains out.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Hold on, I've got to get my patent attorney on the phone...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
According to NASA studies on centrifugation of people, and IIRC, humans can't tell whether they're subjected to centrifugal acceleration or gravity when the radius of rotation exceeds roughly 60 feet.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
I'm not a mod today, but I am disappointed in you. Burt's craft (arguably Paul's craft) solves many, many problems. Its a first step (see tier) in developing a cheap way to space. I challenge you to get to 100km on $20 million (2004 dollars). I wonder how much other teams have spent & what there chances are of reaching space at all, much less doing it twice, with a 600lb payload, in 2 weeks. Nevermind doing it *first*.
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.
X-15 flew 199 times, Spaceship One flew once. You have to divide the cost by the flight count.
Three times already, actually. And what kind of bizarre logic is that? As that article pointed out, just the research for the engine alone cost more than three times SS1's current complete development cost. If the X-15 had flown once, it wouldn't have cost just $1 million.
And even admitting that logic, you'd still have to back down after the next three flights, at which point the two vehicles would be at the same cost per flight in real dollars, and adjusting for 40 years of inflation is a lot of adjustment.
A skyhook with a center-of-mass eastward orbital speed of 16,000 MPH picking up a craft at a eastward speed of 900 MPH and accelerating the end at 3 G would have to extend (r = v^2/a -> r = (15100*.44704)^2/29.4 = 1550 km = 963 miles from the CG. This is a big task, but hardly impossible. I wish I had time to work the required taper and mass but I've got real work to do today. :(
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
That was the magazine article's author's figure, not Bigelow's. Remember that these "hotels" only make sense if they're in orbit, and that probably means a lot higher than 62 miles if they want to be somewhere stable for long enough to make back their investment. Mir hung out around 195 miles; ISS is at 400km. So 200-mile-high club is probably about right.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's a request from your government to other governments to please treat you nicely because you're their citizen or subject, and in particular it's a request to let you travel through their country. It usually includes a committement to accept you back if the other government wants to kick you out. Many countries have rules about checking passports when you get on international airplanes or boats because the airline/boatline doesn't want to have to take you back if you're refused entry.
So if Free Enterprise Space Stations Inc. wants to be rude to visitors who've paid a very large sum of money for a ride and insist that they have their papers in order before they take the trip, well, they can do that, and government passports might be useful. It's more likely that you'd need a working Visa card than a visa, however - the papers-in-order bit is more likely to apply to government-run (i.e. military-run) space stations.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks