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Bigelow Aerospace Deploys Genesis 2 Space Module
ThePopeLayton writes "Space.com is reporting that Bigelow Aerospace has successfully launched its Genesis 2 Space Module. This is significant as Bigelow Aerospace is one of a few private groups currently developing space technologies. The module was launched in a compact form and upon achieving a stable orbit will be inflated using compressed air. Bigelow's website is reporting 'the second experimental pathfinder spacecraft has been successfully launched and inserted into orbit.' The module has a variety of things on board: Scorpions, Hissing Cockroaches, Ant colonies, and even a Bingo game."
10,000 a pound and they send up BINGO?
Scorpions? Cockroaches? Ants? Bingo? See this is what happens when scientist have too much free time on their hands... Bigelow Aerospace, July 2005: SCIENTIST1: "Wouldn't it be cool to send scorpions to space?" SCIENTIST2: "...And have them fight giant space-cockroaches!" SCIENTIST3: "And play bingo!" All: "This is so cool!!! *snort* *snort*"
... welcome our new Bingo-playing Scorpion Overlords...
They should have sent up this instead. It would have been more fitting.
s trial_(Atari_2600)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terre
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
If humans plan to move boldly into space, private investment and development is critical. Imagine the westward expansion of the United States if it had only been performed by governmental institutions. Like most projects, it would have been slow, mismanaged, and innovation would have been stifled. Like wearing denim jeans? Thank Levi Strauss and his creativity during the Gold Rush. Now imagine no westward rushes - only slow, methodical probes such as the Lewis and Clark expedition. Lewis and Clark did a lot of knowledge of the Louisiana Purchase, but the percentage of territory actually explored was miniscule. Did private exploration lead to increased risk and loss of life. Defintitely, but that was a risk that those pioneers were willing to accept. Those who were scared of harm during the voyage stayed home.
How does this all relate to space? Simple - governmental programs by the US, UK, Europe, China, et al, likely will not be the place where true discovery is made. Once commercial interests develop space-based platforms, we will begin to see true innovation, and perhaps, affordable spacebased transit and colonization in the very-long term. It wasn't always pretty, but hard work and planning got people from cities to the frontier of the New World in the 1850's. I believe the same will happen with space.
At the same time, I was unable to find any mention of protection for the craft from micrometeorites and space debris. An inflatable structure will be at greater risk of catastrophic failure from micropunctures than would a traditional aluminum/titanium shell. It will be interesting as well to see what sorts of atmospheric pressure can be contained in the vacuum of space in inflatable structure and their airlock ideas. The psi differences will be drastic, and many inflatable materials do not respond well to the temperature swings of space.
khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.
Sega Genesis II? Awesome! But why the fuck are they launching it into space? :*(
Cockroaches, scorpions, ants and Bingo? Sounds like Phoenix not space. What are they trying to do establish a new place to send all the baby boomers when they get old?
One might ask why they are doing this. We've been launching balloons into orbit for a long time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_satellite These guys are moving toward building a space hotel. Tourists could pay zillions of dollars to visit the space hotel and they would make huge profits. To get the money they need to build the space hotel they need credibility. Launching a couple of balloons is supposed to give them the credibility they need with investors.
Technically, the space hotel people's accomplishment is not as good as what the radio amateurs have done. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMSAT It is more a publicity stunt than scientific advance.
Oh, please. All that cargo combined probably weighs less than five pounds. This sounds more like a shameless and overblown plug for the company than a viable and worthwhile news article
Launch five humans and a habitat module into orbit and you've got my attention.
It is interesting to see imagine the alternative scenario if exploration had been funded primarily by governments. To add further matter to your point, if you consider the expansion into the new world and things like the European expansion into Asia, it is often pioneered by trade. The modern equivalent is private enterprise of course. Historically it is the way that society has seemed to lead to. So then what is the solution to our exploration of space? Leave the role of space exploration solely to private enterprise or still fund things like NASA? If private enterprise is left as the only bastion of expansion will we still see growth in the area? Space is quite rich in resources that are just waiting for exploitation such as mining, and information systems are more and more important in this age. We've seen increasing private involvement in satellites and further systems will evolve. Yes there are groups like the good ol' space elevator people and if you remember back a few years, the Mars Society (if I remember correctly). They were a group of engineers who developed and proved a cheap, workable system to send manned missions to Mars. Sadly as we're can all attest to currently, we are lacking our shiny jetpacks and Moon Condos. So clearly the private sector alone cannot be relied on. What is the best solution then? A synthesis of both as we currently have? The decline in exploration we're currently seeing clearly attests that the status quo is not going to achieve the same levels as desired. Then that leaves increased government funding, which without a clear gain taxpayers are unwilling to support. This is further compounded by issues of safety causing public concern about safety. Interestingly enough if tax payers were not paying for the attempts, I wonder if public outcry to tragedies in space would be on the same level? In other words clear progress into space is a very difficult problem to approach, and without full support of both private and government we're not going to see any substantial gains made. If the Cold War was good for one thing, it was the Space Race. I do not see anything short of that, or a similar thing happening between rival companies leading to rapid expansion into space.
*ducks*
Scorpions in Space? Really who thought that would be a good idea?
Space gigolo!
Ow ow ow ow stop hitting me!
I came to the comments on this story ONLY to read the "Deuce Bigelow - Space Gigolo" comments. Slashdot, you have sorely disappointed me.
Does it have hookers? And blackjack?
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Government involvement bad, commercial investment good, yadda yadda ..yawn... - so why's it not happening?
Because there's no money in it! Nobody's stopping Bill Gates and Exxon and Haliburton from throwing a few billion at spaceflight, the Russians would happily take their dollars and launch up anything they want (oh the irony, the Russians are completely up for free market exploitation of space and the Americans won't allow it...).
So even though you want private investors to pour money in, they aren't doing it... they are waiting for the ev0l government funded projects to take the risk and make the discoveries and lose the lives first. Personally I don't think private companies give a toss about making discoveries and getting involved in innovation, they just want to make a profit.
I had no idea Bigelow had come so far. Lipton and Twinings had better step up to the plate.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Oh wait, that Europe not Scorpions...
Nevermind.
They should have learned from their collegues in the Star Trek Universe that The Genesis Device was a complete failure? Oh! Wait! It's Genesis II. My bad. They must have worked-out all the bugs!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I could have sworn that the headline was DESTROYS Genesis2 Space Module...(Note to self: drink more coffee)
My Slashdot Journal! YAY!
Well, only really old fogeys will have enough money to visit the space hotel and they will probably want to play bingo...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
There is a distinct difference between a ham radio satellite and habitable crew modules. The first merely requires a few thermal considerations and lots of power. The latter requires a lot of thermal considerations, power, airtight construction, etc. Also bear in mind the materials and construction methods being used are brand spanking new - NASA is licensing them for future use. The past radio balloon satellites were mere mylar baloons. No structural integrity and you'd have to be crazy to even think about putting a human in one.
Don't get me wrong - I'm a ham, and I have a great appreciation for the AMSAT program. But this is a whole different ball game.
Isn't there a cheaper way to get rid of these things?
What if the vehicle somehow gets pulled out of Earth's gravity and eventually lands on an inhabited planet? Won't the residents be pissed and decide to annihilate Earth to rid the galaxy of free-square roaches?
We have just insured the the cockroaches will live longer than us, if there is a Nuclear War that devastates the Earth. The cockroaches will wait in their space module until it is safe to come back to Earth and take over the world.
Your sig is remarkably on-topic for this discussion!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Now maybe we can finally know if ants can be trained to sort tiny screws in space.
Private enterprise *does* run space. Who do you think makes and operates almost every spacecraft in operation? Government funding typically acts as little more than subsidy. "We tell you what we want to be able to launch with, and we give you all of the money you need for R&D. Come up with a working concept that meets our requirements, design it, and build it, all on our dime. Then you operate what you just designed and built, and charge us for launches with it."
Why subsidize like that? Because there's not too much profit to be had currently. If companies like Boeing and Lockheed had to fund R&D on their launchers themselves, even commercial satellite launches would almost never be economical.
One might say, "Small industry is the answer." Sadly, the world is littered with the corporate graves of small companies that attempted and failed to bring effective orbital craft to the market.
It seems amazingly difficult for many on Slashdot to accept, but getting to orbit is really, really, really hard, and it's pretty miraculous that we can get out of this deep gravity well at all. Suborbital flight is quite easy, comparitively. It's that extra 6x delta-V that gets you.
That doesn't mean, "Abandon all hope ye who enter this industry." As it stands, for example, I think it looks like SpaceX is shaping up to be one of those rare success stories. But they're not out of the woods yet, nor are their low prices fixed in stone. A couple years and we should have a better idea on them.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
They are looking at doing a hotel, but that is a side business. They are looking at building space stations for any nation/business that wants to be in space. In addition, he is counting on this being used to get to the moon and mars. Finally, this will be used for habitats on both the moon and mars. While everybody else is focus on getting from earth to leo (inner city within europe to a local port), he is focused on controlling the access across the ocean and on the new lands. He will make money across the entire journey except the initial leg. But the xprize and the xprize 2 are guarenteed to give his customers low cost access to his hilton.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Mr. Bigelow who is a billionaire hotel mogul, is also a personal friend of Art Bell from Coast to Coast AM (if you've never heard of it, it's the highest rated late night radio talk show with affiliates world wide), and interviewed him prior to this launch on his show about what he intends to do and the probability of success. The ideas he espoused were essentially luxury vacations in space eventually going for mass market appeal that everyone could afford over time (something in line with an ocean cruise) after the prices come down enough by the super rich going first.
I know that C2C is not popular here and gets all kinds of shit talked about it but I thought I'd point out that they were first (as they have been with many other national news stories which then occasionally leak into the main stream).
Genesis in space? wha?
Khan... Khan, you've got Genesis, but you don't have me. You were going to kill me, Khan. You're gonna have to come down here. You're gonna have to come down here.
I've done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her: marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet, buried alive. Buried alive.
KHAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!
-- QED
Woah, kewl, d00d; I've never heard of The Cockroaches but the Scorpions are way mad. Can we send Lars up too? I'll even give him a dollar!