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.

Comments

DSOTM.

[garcia]

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."

Jewwwws in Spaaacceee!!! Well, maybe not, but sti

[solarmist]

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?

He seems serious

[erick99]

"Bigelow has long shunned any kind of publicity for himself, and since he is investing up to $500 million of his personal fortune into the aerospace company, he's reluctant to give away too much information to potential competitors. "p That's not chump change though it's not a huge amount for space related activities. Still, he seems like he should be taken seriously.

Cheers,

Erick

Re:He seems serious

[TubeSteak]

The big aerospace companies haven't been taking these people seriously exactly for the fact that they're "only" spending $500 Mil. Would you take anyone seriously if they told you they could build a car for 1% of what everyone else is selling it for? ($5 Billion vs $500 Million) Oops, that's just the initial investment, add in the .2% each one will cost and you're saying you'll build a car company and sell $200 dollar cars. And you'll do it in 6 years.

I wouldn't believe you. Individuals have always been able to do amazing things on relatively shoe-string budgets, when they don't have to get caught up in the big business shuffle.

That price better

[GillBates0]

include a Free Continental breakfast, or I'm not going.

Re:That price better

[Anonymous Coward]

It is still considered a Continental breakfast, if they are serving it to you in space?

Re:That price better

[Mannerism]

Depending on your space-sickness tolerance, it may be incontinental.

Why?

[the Luddite]

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?

Re:Why?

[Eclypser]

What's there to do in Delaware? Yet, people still go there.

Re:Why?

[mrright]

There is plenty of stuff that can be done better in space once the transportation costs go down. You have unlimited quantities of hard vacuum, free energy from the sun 24h a day, access to very low temperatures with a simple radiator and perfect isolation from the earth biosphere.

So everything that could be harmful to the biosphere, requires lots of energy, hard vacuum or cryogenic temperatures will be more economical in space once the transportation problem is solved.

The first thing will probably be stuff like genetic engineering and bioweapons research. Then there will be solar power satellites. And once you get these in place most of the heavy industry will move to space (high earth orbit, to be precise).

Just think about the advantages: you can build a huge industrial complex without people suing you about the noise, the pollution etc.

Re:Why?

[micromoog]

Just think about the advantages: you can build a huge industrial complex without people suing you about the noise, the pollution etc.

And as an added bonus, maybe all the pollution and garbage that gets dumped into space as a result will give the Earth a cool-looking set of rings.

Re:Why?

[isorox]

Sex.

The VCR took off because of porn
The internet took off because of porn
Space tourism will take of because of Sex.

Re:Why?

[ultranova]

Yeah, whatever. And transporting materials for heavy industry into a high orbit is going to cut costs.

Depends where you get those materials. If you attach a solar-powered mass-driver into one of the large (10 kilometers or so in diameter) metal asteroid and transfer it to Earth orbit, you have nearly endless supply of almost-pure ore.

And lets not forget that the heavy minerals in Earth have sunk to the core and are thus rare in the surface, whereas asteroids have them aplenty. This allows producing things that simply couldn't be mass-produced in Earth due to lack of raw materials.

And once you do finish emptying that 10-kilometer asteroid, are you out of luck ? No ! You send the mass-driver back to the asteroid belt to get you another, and sell the empty shell of the asteroid (you were a smart person and left the outermost kilometer or so untouched, only broken by a mine shaft to the interior) to serve as a hull for a space colony (or a really big spaceship).

Industry is happy because it has virtually unlimited resources and no concern for the environment; the enviromentalists are happy because the industry has moved its big dirty factories away; consumers are happy because they can get stuff cheap; and the geeks are happy because there is space colonies, factories and travel. Arabs won't be happy because we will most likely switch to using either hydrogen (because with sunpower satellites electricity will be practically free, and hydrogen can be easily mass-produced by electrolyzing water) or better batteries made with all these new materials and zero-g construction methods, but with dependence of oil gone, who cares ?-)

Oh, and you can deliver your goods anywhere on the world by packing them into re-entry capsules and dropping.

You're idea sounds a hell of a lot better and cheaper than decent acoustic insulation.

Acoustic insulation, and pollution filters, and electric bills, and transporting raw materials and finished goods...

Yes, it is starting to sound better.

Pardon the sarcasm above, but I'm just not buying it. Your idea seems too far-fetched even for sci-fi.

You did knew that one purpose of current and past space stations is to examine the possibilities of zero-g manufacturing ?

Sarcams will bite its wielder if uttered without caution :).

What to do in space...

[Mysticalfruit]

200 mile high club?

Don't run with scissors...

[misterbleepy]

I hope the material they use is micro-meteorite proof.

--<POP>--

Re:Don't run with scissors...

[mrright]

Its the same kind of material that is used in bulletproof vests. But it is multilayered and much thicker. So of course it is micro-meteorite proof.

Tests with the NASA transhab design have shown that multi-layered inflatables are more resistant to space debris than aluminium hulls. That should come as no surprise since the materials involved have much more (mass specific) tensile strength than aluminium.

Have you ever seen a flak vest made from aluminium?

Its all coming together now...

[mrright]

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.

Priceline?

[Himring]

I wonder what sorta deals priceline.com will offer?

1-Star Space Orbital
4-Star Deluxe
3-Star Upscale
2½-Star Moderate-Plus
2-Star Moderate
1-Star Economy

Name Your Own Price $ .00

they have that covered...

[JeanBaptiste]

"I hope the material they use is micro-meteorite proof."

they have that covered... they're bringing a micro-bruce-willis

Sky high prices

[ericspinder]

...[needing a valve for life support]Bigelow went shopping. American aerospace giants were willing to sell him the valve at costs that ranged from $300,000 to $1 million. Bigelow found and purchased the same valve from a European company. The cost for the identical valve? A mere $5,000.

Sounds like the legendary $500 hammer, you know the one where they put all the design and fixed costs into the price of the first run of products. It generally get really expensive if you are only doing one. For example if they only built one Ford Focus it would be a Billion dollar car. Most likely the german company has invested in a computerized milling machine, which greatly reduces costs for single items.

Re:Sky high prices

[RockClimbingFool]

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.

Re:Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL

[mrright]

There are plenty of people developing new space transports. Most notably spacex. But there are many more such as the mysterious Blue Origin by Jeff Bezos and of course Burt Rutans followup to the SpaceShipOne.

And even if these efforts all fail, there are plenty of relatively cheap launchers available today, most notably the russian proton and the zenit sea launch.

And we most definitely do not need a new shuttle. We need cheap access to space, and the shuttle was a total failure in this regard.

Re:This will be great

[mrright]

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.

Re:This will be great

[bs_testability]

do you mean like the way that we all distanced ourselves from airplanes after the first fatalities? or automobiles?

Re:Radiation ?

[mrright]

The first space habitats will be in low earth orbit where the earth magnetosphere provides some protection from charged particle radiation from the sun and deep space.

And the bigelow designs will use water-filled bladders on the inside of the wall to provide additional radiation protection. If you want to go outside low earth orbit, just add more water.

For solar storms there will be a radiation shelter with very thick water walls.

sick building syndrome...

[PoPRawkZ]

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.

I guess it's time to add

[vijaya_chandra]

the phrase 'space hotel' and variants like 'spays hotale' to the block words in your spam blocker

Inflatable?

[TCaptain]

I wonder if they'll have inflatable escorts?

Some slashdotters will feel right at home :)

OT: zillion-dollar-hammer

[YankeeInExile]

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!

Re:OT: zillion-dollar-hammer

[Otter]

There really was a $500 hammer ("that you could buy at the hardware store for $6"). IIRC, it turned out to be a beryllium hammer for working around high magnetic fields, to avoid damage to instruments costing far more than $500.

Just like the $300 coffee pot was for a C-130 full of troops, the $800 toilet seat was a complete head for low pressure...

Re:OT: zillion-dollar-hammer

[Dun Malg]

Just like the $300 coffee pot was for a C-130 full of troops

Couldnt they have, like, used flasks ?

Actually, it was part of a $20,000 hot coffee/tea/soup dispensing system built into the planes used by the Rapid Deployment Force. When you need to send the RDF somewhere, there really isn't time for people to go find a thermos make a pot of coffee. Besides, when they wake you up in the middle of the night and say "get your gear and form up"*, you have no way of knowing if it's just a drill or if it's the real thing. Do you carry around thermos of hot coffee all day and sleep with one under your pillow all niught, just in case?

* happened to me in December 1989. Woke us up at 2am and said "get your shit ready". Four hours later we were flying to Panama.

Re:Burt Rutan does not matter.

[julesh]

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.

Re:Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL

[LilJC]

Aside from this, who says the shuttle concept is what we really need?

Me, for one. So did my astronautical design professor. Our design project was to design a system to launch into space for no more than $5,000 / lb (current cost ~$10,000 / lb).

We were working on systems for satellite payloads, not people, but 5 out of the 6 teams wrote viable proposals that met the (realistic) criteria of the RFP, largely by cutting a ton of energy expenditure by starting by flying in the same direction the Earth orbits to an altitude where the air is considerably thinner, and firing the big rockets from there.

The reason we need a new concept is because we keep sending things straight up from the ground, which has massive energy costs without any lift. It works much better to launch from a higher altitude - you still have to overcome gravity, but when you make the send-off to space you don't have to pack as much fuel (read: expensive) because you're already at a speed contributing to orbit. Cutting fuel cuts cost so much not because you don't have to pay for the fuel as much as you don't have to pay to launch the extra fuel with more fuel, which you need more fuel for, etc, and by the time you're ready to launch you've got a relatively small transport vehicle strapped onto an obese big fuel container.

Remember everyone who talked about putting a staging area for deep space missions (e.g. Mars) on the moon? Same idea here.

It's not easy to make work in the real world, plenty of people working on it for a while have already been listed. But it will be done, and it will make our brute force concept look like trying to move a refrigerator without a dolly.

NASA's Transhab wasn't killed for budget concerns

[eris_crow]

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.

This is Waaayyy before it's time.

[phayes]

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.

this is cool and all

[jford235]

but is there wifi and will my powerbook work up there?

Honeymooner market?

[danharan]

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...

Re:Yes you are missing something.

[barawn]

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.