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Orbital Resort to Launch by 2010
Neil Halelamien writes "Popular Science has a cover feature on self-made billionaire and space enthusiast Robert Bigelow (who's been mentioned before on Slashdot). The article has new info on Bigelow's plans to launch a 'CSS Skywalker' orbital resort by 2010 and sell space habitats to others, such as scientists, manufacturers, Hollywood producers, and countries. The habitats will be made of inflatable modules with multilayered kevlar-like walls. A prototype habitat will be launching on a SpaceX Falcon V next year. To help ensure cost-effective access to the station, Bigelow is also running the $50 million America's Space Prize. In the long run, he plans to use the modules as the basis for space yachts and moon cruisers."
Even if some of his plans are a bit crazy, he at least has the guts to try to innovate!
And since this is a private enterprise, it should come out much cheaper then anything NASA can dream of(probablly not as safe though, but NASA's stuff is very safe so its kinda hard to compete with them on that front.)
I'll believe it when I see it....
Not to say it cant be done.. but 2010 ? Gotta love the marketing departments.. oh wait, no.. they put impossible demands on us...
Does the idea of inflatable modules make anyone else nervous ?
I dunno about you, but I'd really like the walls around me that contain my breathing air and keep me warm and from exploding into the void of space made of something nice and hard... like reinforced steel. Maby it's some sort of expandable material over a hard superstructure, but then there are some other issues:
The article mentions:
"lightweight but extremely strong and long-lived inflatable "soft goods" to form modules made of proprietary advanced aerospace materials"
Maby i'm just a traditionalist holding back the frontier, but man, that sounds like a bubble just waiting to be punctured by one of those little paint chips zipping around the earth at a million miles an hour (from old missions, etc). Support structure or no, if you puncture that balloon it vents, and I'm inside, and i will NOT be a happy camper.
Also, I'm wondering what kind of radiation protection these things provide. These materials sound "thin and lightweight" which is what they want for good launch weight, but thin often means poor radiation blocking ability.
My opinion ? Keep the crew in something nice and solid.. keep supplies in these inflato-things, and make sure they can be quickly locked down from the rest of the ship/station/whatever.
I'd be impressed if he was successful, but he doesn't need to succeed. He just needs to get closer than anyone else ever has. The first person who can demonstrate the possibility of commercial gains in space will be doing us all an enormous favor.
I've always felt that the non-exploitation pact--that international agreement that says it's a Bad Thing to stripmine on Mars--was a really bad idea. Taking the possibility of commercial gain out of space travel is an excellent way to ensure that all space travel is done by governments and universities. I don't trust governments to do the job efficiently, and I doubt many universities could pull it off without strings-attached grants and funding.
The best way to ensure, over the long run, maximized efficiency and high-level accountability is to leave the job to private enterprise. Companies competing for a profit will find ways to do things cheaper, faster and safer. The trade-off is that there are more likely to be some really bad ideas getting launched, and in space, no one can hear you scream... but that's another detail. Private enterprise might be more willing to take the risks that a post-Challenger United States (for example) is not.
But private enterprise won't even bother if there's not a bottom line. So I say, encourage the strip-mining of Mars (hell, better Mars than one's hometown, don't you think?). Encourage orbiting vacation spots for the wealthy. Encourage claim-staking and competition.
Once we're already up there and comfortable, then we can let the galactic treehuggers cry foul. But let's get up there first.
What he wants is more important that what I want. What he wants is also more important that what you want.
read the damn article. the skin is made of 18" thick woven materials like kevlar. micrometerorites will not penetrate it. and don't say "wouldn't a nice piece of metal work etc". look at bullet proof vests. are they made of slabs of steel?
I just found the box to change my sig. Um.... [timeless witticism].
In many respects, NASA already laid a lot of the ground work for his idea.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
There is no way if she had to write a paper back in her school days, about the future, that if she mentioned this, se would be told she has such a creative mind but not realistic.
Sure, but had you asked a schoolkid from 1969 to write a paper about space travel in the year 2005 and the kid managed predict it accurately he/she would have been given an F by the teacher for being completely, unreasonably, pathetically pessimistic (and possibly expelled for being a subversive communist when they write that all US orbital launch capability in 2005 was bought from Russia and Europe!)
Back then most people expected us to have a permanent moon base by now. Manned missions to Mars would have been assumed as well. Somewhere in there we seriously lost momentum.
Jedidiah.
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