SpaceX Delivers World's First Inflatable Room For Astronauts (go.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The SpaceX Dragon cargo ship which launched from Cape Canaveral on Friday delivered the world's first inflatable room for astronauts. It arrived at the ISS on Sunday after station astronauts used a robot arm to capture the Dragon, orbiting 250 miles above Earth. The compartment should swell to the size of a small bedroom once filled with air next month. It will be attached to the space station this Saturday, but won't be inflated until the end of May. NASA envisions inflatable habitats in a couple decades at Mars, while Bigelow Aerospace aims to launch a pair of inflatable space stations in just four years for commercial lease. Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will be restricted from the six on-board astronauts while NASA tests the chamber to see how it performs. The rocket used to launch the cargo ship successfully landed on a floating drone ship for the first time ever. It was the second time SpaceX successfully landed one of its rockets post-launch; the first time was in December, when the company's Falcon 9 rocket touched down at a ground-based landing site at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after putting a satellite into space.

Comments

their very own bounce-house

[turkeydance]

i always wanted one, too.

Re:their very own bounce-house

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mother and I made the back seat of your car into our bounce house. I must say, your mother is quite a screamer.

Re:their very own bounce-house

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of the expression, "bouncing off the walls." Now astronauts will really be able to dot it.

Re:their very own bounce-house

[rmdingler]

I don't know... it seems like Jiffy Pop may have a prior art case.

Re:their very own bounce-house

[Provocateur]

Inflatable?
astronauts?
Did they really name the project Space sex? Since Day One?

A complete waste of resources

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not even close to being able to send people to Mars or anywhere else in space on any reasonable scale. Let's figure out how to build structures like space stations on a larger scale or a moon base. When we're able to successfully put a colony in space or on the moon, then perhaps we can look toward going to Mars. For now, though, this is a tremendous waste of time and resources. I get that we'll eventually need to colonize other worlds, but efforts like this when we're nowhere close to being ready are foolish and take away from more viable efforts that could actually improve our ability to colonize space or other worlds. Let's put a permanent research station on the moon and staff it much the way we do with the Amundsen-Scott Station at the south pole. When that's viable, we can use it as a launching point to get to Mars, plus we'll have a lot more experience at colonizing other worlds.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Sarten-X]

Let's figure out how to build structures like space stations on a larger scale

A cheap way to do that would be inflatable rooms, so a large work environment can be launched with fewer (and smaller) rockets.Of course, once built, such a thing would need to be tested, but I suppose that's a "complete waste of resources"...

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Anonymous Coward]

Same AC here. It's not a complete waste of resources to test this in space. It's not a complete resource to test it on the moon. Inflatable rooms are probably quite useful in space and on the moon, in addition to Mars. I'm actually lamenting that we're only focusing on going to Mars and not the incremental progress of building larger space colonies and a permanent research station on the moon. Both are really useful steps toward a Mars mission, which is a good long term goal. But let's prepare for that by testing a couple of intermediate colonies in space and on the moon.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[beelsebob]

Uhhhh... Last I checked they were doing exactly what you suggest - building structures like space stations on a larger scale.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[religionofpeas]

Let's figure out how to build structures like space stations on a larger scale or a moon base. When we're able to successfully put a colony in space or on the moon, then perhaps we can look toward going to Mars. For now, though, this is a tremendous waste of time and resources.

Space stations and a moon base are an even bigger waste of time and resources.

I get that we'll eventually need to colonize other worlds

A small and fragile colony on another planet isn't going to add any significant improvement to the odds of survival. We could use the same resources to improve the odds here on Earth by a greater degree.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Anonymous Coward]

A small and fragile colony on another planet isn't going to add any significant improvement to the odds of survival. We could use the same resources to improve the odds here on Earth by a greater degree.

We are using a lot more resources to improve the odds here on Earth and the results are pretty meh.
It would be nice to have something that isn't the production system to test things on.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[reboot246]

Drop. In. The. Bucket.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Rei]

Meh, everyone has their own goals. I personally wish we'd be focusing toward a colony in Venus's cloudtops (the most Earthlike place in the solar system).

But Mars gets all the money.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Rei]

(Most earthlike apart from Earth, that is ;) )

Re:A complete waste of resources

[TheRaven64]

Hurricane-force winds and hydrogen fluoride rain will make that an exciting place to live. It might be the most earthlike, but outside of active volcanos and ocean trenches you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere on Earth less hospitable. It makes the south pole look like a pleasant holiday resort in comparison.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[religionofpeas]

We are using a lot more resources to improve the odds here on Earth and the results are pretty meh.

So why do you think results would be any better if we tried to do the same on another planet ? The underlying reasons for things going "meh" aren't suddenly going to disappear just because we're using rockets.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Rei]

Hurricane-force winds

"Winds" are not hazardous, turbulence is. The high wind speed (superrotation) is a significant benefit, not a negative; you circle the planet at no energy cost, and it dramatically reduces your day length.

There's still a good deal uncertainty about the degree of turbulence that can be expected, and like Earth it probably varies greatly by latitude and altitude. At this point, the only data that we have on that comes from the Vega probes. From what we've seen, it's probably in the same ballpark as that on Earth.

and hydrogen fluoride rain

Hydrogen fluoride rain will not occur on Venus. We're not sure if any rain (or snow, or hail, or icing, or other forms of precipitation) occurs on Venus, and if so, from what compounds (that will depend on the altitude). But hydrogen fluoride is too minor of a constituent to form a significant portion of rain at any altitude.

Hydrogen fluoride's risk comes from (like all chemicals on Venus) permeation through the envelope. Plants are rather sensitive to HF, moreso than to H2SO4 and H3PO4 mists and SO2. The rate of permeation of a compound depends on the surface area and the permeation rate data for the compound, which is usually based on the material and relative to thickness and temperature. The VEGA balloons used old-school PTFE, which has rather high permeation (as one might guess, given that expanded PTFE is used in breathable waterproof fabrics). But plastics have moved beyond that. The next big shift was to liquid crystal polymers like vectran. They're not as chemical-resistant as PTFE, but generally considered "good enough" for Venus; they're also much stronger and they have incredibly low rates of permeation. The big problem with liquid crystal polymers is that they're very complex, chemically; it would be difficult to produce them locally. Hence the ideal approach IMHO - if one wants low permeation but also easy production chains - is modern PTFE variants plus a UHMWPE ripstop.

There have been big advancements in PTFE in recent years, such as Teflon NXT and FEP (among many others). NXT is PTFE plus a fraction of a percent PPVE, which dramatically reduces its permeability as well as improving a lot of its other properties. They're not as good as vectran, but the permeability levels are acceptable. PPVE could be supplied from earth, but it's not the only such comonomer that provides such benefits. IMHO the most interesting is HFP, because that can be produced from the same process that produces TFE, just at higher pressures. Indeed, FEP is a copolymerized HFP/TFE. As for the ripstop, UHMWPE is even simpler than PTFE to produce, and more to the point has already been demonstrated for space applications, so it's at a high TRL (though fabric production from it is a lower TRL). While UHMWPE doesn't have the heat tolerance of PTFE, it's otherwise excellent - acid resistant (in case anything permeates through), extremely abrasion resistant, and a very high tensile strength to weight ratio. It's UV sensitive, but Venus isn't a high UV environment, and 0,2% HALS absorbers imported from Earth render it quite stable (there's a lot of other absorbers that can be paired with it). For the PTFE you'd also want ATO or ITO (0,2-0,5%) to make it high-E.

Did I mention that I've been researching this topic? ;)

It might be the most earthlike, but outside of active volcanos and ocean trenches you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere on Earth less hospitable.

It's more hospitable than Mars. :) People focus a lot about Venus's cloudtop acids (which are actually a resource - heating 85% H2SO4 mist (which your engines that compensate for meridional drift can suck across adsorption bed) yields water (both directly and by the decomposition of H2SO4 to H2O + SO3) and oxygen (from the catalytic decomposition of SO3 at elevated temperatures)). But the acid mists

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Anonymous Coward]

So why do you think results would be any better if we tried to do the same on another planet ?

Because the actions needed to actually get results aren't going to be on the scale of everyone starting to eat organic. Just stopping to do things will not be sufficient at this point.
If the amount of greenhouse gasses added by the industrialization are on a terraforming scale then any lesser action won't undo that.

The results would be better if we tried on another planet simply because then we can afford to fail.
Accidentally making the air on this planet toxic to humans while trying to counter global warming would be undesirable.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Thelasko]

Meh, everyone has their own goals. I personally wish we'd be focusing toward a colony in Venus's cloudtops (the most Earthlike place in the solar system).

But Mars gets all the money.

I once heard that the US spends all of it's resources on Mars because the Soviets had put a lander on Venus. The US wanted to prove its superiority, so it chose to explore the more distant and inhospitable Mars.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[slew]

Hurricane-force winds

"Winds" are not hazardous, turbulence is. The high wind speed (superrotation) is a significant benefit, not a negative; you circle the planet at no energy cost, and it dramatically reduces your day length.

There's still a good deal uncertainty about the degree of turbulence that can be expected, and like Earth it probably varies greatly by latitude and altitude. At this point, the only data that we have on that comes from the Vega probes. From what we've seen, it's probably in the same ballpark as that on Earth.

On the other hand, there is some unknown form of lightning and so-called "atmospheric gravity-waves" (completely unrelated to gravitational waves) detected by ESA's Venus Express. This seem to indicate that we really don't know what to expect about the atmospheric conditions on Venus and it's likely a floating ship in the atmosphere could actually be a continuous thrill ride experience.

We can always dream things, but right now these things are still in the realm of science fiction, not science fact. Perhaps theoretically possible, but may or may not be practical.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Anonymous Coward]

You really are clueless. This is being tested so that BA can put up their own space station within 4 years. In addition, BA wants to go to the moon with this.
Now, you come along and gripe about this and ignore what BA has said all along.
Please go back to Microsoft or the GOP or whatever rug you crawled out from. Idiots like you are why we have issues about space.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Anonymous Coward]

hey moron.
NASA is wanting to go to Mars because NOBODY HAS DONE THAT AND IT IS HARD.
HOWEVER, at the same time, they are helping private space to provide numerous inexpensive launch vehicles, while testing/helping companies that are building inexpensive space station, and inexpensive landing/launch vehicles for both the moon and mars.
IOW, NASA is helping private space to set up a space station, followed by a base on the moon.
NASA does not have to be doing it all.

Fucking idiots like you are the ones costing America. Quit wasting our money.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Anonymous Coward]

With comments like yours, it is obvious why you will never be confused with Einstein or Hawkins.
Why do idiots like you come out on the space stuff?

Re:A complete waste of resources

[religionofpeas]

Just stopping to do things will not be sufficient at this point.

It still would be preferable to continuing with business as usual, but that's exactly what we're doing. Everybody agrees that saving the planet would be nice, but a lot of people think watching TV with a beer is ever nicer. With that attitude, who's going to fund trillions for a space colony with little chance of success ?

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Rei]

It's not "science fiction", but it absolutely does require significant prep work (same as a Mars colony). As mentioned, there's no shortage of missions sitting on the backburner that would provide much of the needed data... but Mars gets all of the funding.

there is some unknown form of lightning

The nature of Venus's lightning is very much unknown at this point of time, including whether there's a hadesphere "anomaly" that shocks things as they descend through it and whether there's a radio-reflective layer that allows for lightning detection from great distances. But both of these things only apply to the lower atmosphere. It's unclear at this point whether there's any lightning at all in the middle (habitable) cloud layer. Lightning flashes have never been visually detected, so that at least rules out the upper cloud deck, and reduces the odds that it's in the middle. But we also don't think it's volcanic based on the evidence thusfar. We really don't know. That said, even if lightning does exist in the middle cloud deck, like Earth you wouldn't expect it to be uniformly spread across the wide potential latitude and altitude ranges - the odds that every habitable height and latitude would be high lightning risk zones is extremely unlikely. It's quite possible that none of them face a lightning risk.

As for the danger from a lightning strike to a blimp, on Earth it's proven to be.... well, underwhelming. While lightning has been implicated in fires of hydrogen airships, in helium blimps it hasn't been implicated in more than rare, minor skin damage (to be fair, blimps don't fly when adverse weather is to be expected - but even ground-tethered aerostats which are out 24/7 deal with lightning surprisingly well). And this is with no lightning protection system, which could readily be incorporated into a Venus habitat. And even moreso? Check the dielectric strength for helium vs. oxygen and nitrogen vs. CO2. Helium breaks down far easier than air on Earth (0,15 vs 3 MV/m), making it easier for lightning to flow through a blimp than through the air around it. This isn't the situation on a Venus habitat filled with O2/N2. And the outside environment ionized particulate matter, unlike the interior. And a PTFE/UHMWPE skin is a better insulator than polyurethane/nylon.

In short: more data is absolutely needed. But in no way does it appear like it's going to be a serious problem.

and so-called "atmospheric gravity-waves" (completely unrelated to gravitational waves)

I'm not sure you know what gravity waves are, given your inclusion of them here. We have them on Earth, too. In fact, we really had to search to find them on Venus; there's no evidence that they're more common or more severe than on Earth (nor should they be - the mountains that (presumably) cause them are such great distances below). They can be a source of turbulence**, but no more than other sources on average. Glider pilots love using them** to make long sustained glides. Furthermore, on Venus they've only ever been detected over Ishtar Terra anyway - by far the highest mountains.

** There's really three effects in play - near the ground you have rotors (high turbulence, but irrelevant here), then higher, stationary lee waves (stable, good for gliding), and evanescent waves (detached; cause high level turbulence by shifting the tropopause periodically up and down... but a blimp designed for tropospheric operation doesn't care about that). More to the point, blimps aren't particularly turbulence sensitive to begin with - they're not like planes. In severe cases they can pitch and roll, but they never lose lift (obviously). Lesser turbulence that would bother passengers on an airplane is generally unnoticeable on a blimp.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Rei]

The Soviets' didn't explore much outside of Venus and the Moon (their Mars program was rather ill-fated... though at least they tried; they didn't even try outside the orbit of Mars). But their efforts concerning Venus really were admirable; they had some failures but overall they proved that exploration of Venus is quite doable, and gathered most of the data that we have today.

Re:A complete waste of resources

[Coren22]

It seems odd that that chart indicates resources as high, as in the cloud layer there are nearly no resources and getting to the ones on the surface would be difficult (to say the least...).

Privacy in space

[suupaabaka]

I don't know anything about living situations in space, but I can't imagine there would be a great deal of privacy. Maybe this is an elegant solution for people who need a degree of solitude, and might broaden the selection criteria for the space program?

Re:Privacy in space

[Locke2005]

Sounds like a better solution for those that want to investigate the effects of zero-g sex... the walls would be much more comfortable to bounce off of than the tin can walls of an old-fashioned habitat.

Re: Privacy in space

[bill_mcgonigle]

Any "space program" is going to be staffed like a submarine.

You might prefer a "space vacation" where they cater to customers' desires. Musk will have private tourists on Mars before NASA gets there.

Re: Privacy in space

[Anonymous Coward]

Musk will have private tourists on Mars before NASA gets there

Really? How many times has he sent people to the moon yet?

Re: Privacy in space

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, chucklenuts.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the...

Stick to software, the virtual world is more your speed.

Re: Privacy in space

[Michael Woodhams]

I have been wondering lately: How much extra effort would it take SpaceX to do a manned moon mission?

They will soon have most of the pieces. Two Falcon 9 Heavies (first flight planned for November) have nearly the payload of a Saturn V, the manned Dragon (first flight planned early-mid next year) would work as a command module*. Missing is a lander, and possibly a stage to transfer from low Earth orbit to lunar orbit, which could probably be a lightly modified stage 2 of the existing Falcon 9.

The 'only' expensive bit still to do then is the lander. Not coincidentally, this is also the only bit which has no other use, so money spent on design has no future pay-back (except for more moon missions.) I don't know how much this would cost, but I doubt it would be under half a billion dollars, likely much more.

*The Dragon is about the same diameter as the Apollo module, but about twice as long. I don't know how it compares by mass - it is bigger, but modern materials are lighter.

Re:Privacy in space

[Daemonik]

Once inflated those walls will be hard as steel, albeit with a nice cloth covering.

Re: Privacy in space

[TheRaven64]

The 'only' expensive bit still to do then is the lander. Not coincidentally, this is also the only bit which has no other use, so money spent on design has no future pay-back (except for more moon missions.)

In contrast, the landers used on the Apollo missions funded a lot of research that has quite widespread application. The light composites and the joints used to allow them to be folded and deployed have appeared in a load of other things. Modern folding bicycles are probably the most visible, as most of the other uses look a lot less like the lander.

Re: Privacy in space

[Thelasko]

The SuperDraco thrusters on the Dragon 2 may have the capability to escape the Moon's weak gravitational pull. If that's true, SpaceX just needs two Dragons to land on the Moon.

Re: Privacy in space

[Anonymous Coward]

They have the thrust, easily - they have enough thrust to allow a propulsive landing under Earth gravity, or even to act as a launch escape system - but the real problem is delta-v. SuperDraco thrusters have a specific impulse of 240 s, which corresponds to an exhaust velocity of 2.35 km/s. Escape velocity for the moon is 2.38 km/s. The dry mass of a Dragon 2 is 6.4 tonnes. Putting those numbers together, the mass of fuel it needs to escape the moon is (e^(2.38/2.35) - 1)*6.4 = 11.2 tonnes.

I'm having trouble finding a number for the actual fuel capacity of the Dragon 2, but I seriously doubt that it carries twice its mass in fuel. Its thrusters are designed for short propulsive landings, with sufficient delta-v to cancel out the last few hundred m/s of velocity after Earth's atmosphere has done most of the slowing-down for it.

Note that the situation is considerably worse than the numbers above indicate. Escaping the moon isn't enough: you need to get back to Earth afterwards, too. And you need even more fuel to slow down before landing on the moon. And it all goes exponentially: if you want to do lunar injection, landing, reorbit, and return to Earth (i.e. everything Apollo did after the third stage of the Saturn V was expended), you need maybe 6 km/s of delta-v, in which case your fuel requirement is (e^(6/2.35) - 1)*6.4 = 76 tonnes. And there you're up into Saturn V territory, not something you can do with any proposed Falcon variant.

Re:Privacy in space

[Coren22]

Already been investigated, it was found that men can't perform in zero G because of lack of blood pressure, so it is a no go.

About time

[Anonymous Coward]

I first theorized some decades ago that inflatable rooms were the way to go. Glad they finally went that route.

Re:About time

[dsmatthews9379]

Sure you did, the idea is almost 60 years old. http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRA...

Porn Saves ISS

[Anonymous Coward]

Way back in the day, Porn saved the Compact Disk Player, CD.

Then, Porn, saved the Internet (post NSF net).

Now Porn Saves ISS!

Ha ha

Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Locke2005]

800 miles above the surface of the planet, living in a fucking TENT! "No space debris could possibly puncture the fabric walls of this baby!"

Re:Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Anonymous Coward]

800 miles above the surface of the planet, living in a fucking TENT! "No space debris could possibly puncture the fabric walls of this baby!"

Yeah, they never would have thought of that...
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20160001632.pdf

And the ISS is between 254-258 miles up.

Re:Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Firethorn]

Think less 'tent' and more 'bouncy castle' that's intended to have kids bounce all over it, except even stronger.

The inflatable module is rated to be as or more penetration resistant as the non-inflatable modules already up there, and at the pressure differential it will have, it will be roughly as stiff as well.

Re: Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh yeah, like the ISS isn't already at risk of failure from the same source.

Re:Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Anonymous Coward]

Space debris that can penetrate the tent would also likely penetrate the hull.
For tiny items like paint flecks at more reasonable speeds, etc you can use a kevlar (or similar) inner catch layer(s) combined with a self-sealing outside layer(s).

But I'm sure that nobody involved in this project could possibly have thought of this problem, and you're the first to mention it.

Re:Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Harlequin80]

Holy shit you are going a long way out! At least at your altitude the requirement to boost higher due to drag will be almost zero.

Re:Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[inode_buddha]

Think about inflatable sheep and penetration, then you'll understand why and how it works.

Re:Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Dutch Gun]

We've had self-sealing containers and fabric-based armor for a while now.

Of course, I'm sure SpaceX and NASA engineers never considered the possibility of using either of these, and no doubt the container will simply pop like a balloon when the first micro-meteorite impacts it.

Re:Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Jeremi]

800 miles above the surface of the planet, living in a fucking TENT! "No space debris could possibly puncture the fabric walls of this baby"

The 'fabric' in that 'tent' is more puncture-resistant than the existing walls of the space station. Bigelow over-engineered the hell out of it to minimize its likelihood of failure.

Re:Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that large enough piece of space debris will do anything between puncture to spreading ISS very thinly around the earth-s orbit you can't really ask "will it be space debris proof", no it won't even if you have something like meter thick titanium walls. You can however ask is module A more space debris resistant than module B. And in this regard this balloon actually aims to beat the traditional tin cans.

Re:Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Anonymous Coward]

When you collide with space debris at 17,100 mph it doesn't make much difference what the wall is made of.
As a reference the muzzle velocity for a naval railgun can be close to 8,600 mph.
Anything you can feasibly launch into space will be as good as flimsy fabric.

With that said we shouldn't disregard the importance of perceived safety.
If astronauts feels that having a metal sheet between them and a virtual railgun will somehow protect them then there is a certain value in that that could justify the extra launching cost.
After all people feel that the cost of TSA is justified, even if they don't do much when it comes to security.

Re:Yeah, that's sounds REAL secure

[Rei]

Indeed - BEAM is built to the same debris impact tolerance standards as the ISS itself. High strength fibers, it should be pointed out, are also used in bulletproof vests.

Fibers tend to have far superior tensile strength to weight ratios vs. metals.

Bouncy castles on Mars

[hooiberg]

Whatever happened to good old titatium? Are we running out of?
I know launch costs are considerable, but living in a bouncy castle on Mars does not seem like a very good idea to me.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Firethorn]

Whatever happened to good old titatium? Are we running out of?

Titanium is hard to work with, not as strong as kevlar fibers in this sort of application, suffers damage from radiation and temperature swings, and eventually cracks and shatters.

At a pressure differential approaching 1 atm, the inflated module will be approximately as stiff as a hard side structure at a fraction of the weight, and will actually be stronger in most respects. Should also last longer, but that's what testing is for!

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

This blows up like a balloon. You can launch a titanium tube, or a tube with a blow-up module with something like 16 times the space.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

The first half of what you said isn't really true. All metals are much more resistant to radiation damage than polymers. Nearly everything fatigues, not just metals. Plastics tend to be prone to creep, outgassing (think gases that become condensed liquids/solids on solar panels), embrittlement at low temperatures, etc. I don't think it's obvious that these modules are great for space applications, though lunar / mars structures should be more certain. Exciting to see it tested though.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad they are testing it too, because we don't really know. I am betting on it working just fine, and wish they were going to test it longer.

Sending up a bunch of inflatables, even if they had to be coated or wrapped in something to improve it, would be cheaper and easier than the existing method.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Applehu Akbar]

Which testing is the exact point of this exercise.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[bugs2squash]

I would have thought that there would be a lot of differences between considerations for accommodation in open space (a radiation resistant spheroid with no need to account for gravity presumably), the moon (radiation resistance, gravity, and presumably a hemisphere or some other shape with appreciable "floor area") and Mars, more gravity, Maybe build something inside a cave that conforms to the walls inside and need not be exposed to so much radiation or flying paint chips?

So much so that I would think it best to test a mars-living module here on earth, not in space.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[50000BTU_barbecue]

"suffers damage from radiation and temperature swings, and eventually cracks and shatters."

Odd, the SR-71 is said to get stronger with time as each flight tempers the metal more and more.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Tyr07]

If it works exceedingly well as hoped for, the fact that it's an inflatable means storage is easier.

This would allow for much more construction to be performed or easier delivery. Like, more food, oxygen and water since the inflatable rooms are lighter and take less space while deflated.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

"is said to"? By who?

Also, did they specify stronger or tougher? In engineering, the distinction is important.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

since the inflatable rooms are lighter and take less space while deflated.

Care to motivate the "lighter" part?
Whatever the rooms are filled with still has to be transported somehow.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Daemonik]

We really do know. Bigelow has put up inflatable habitats for testing before, this is just the first time NASA's used one. NASA is a very conservative organization, in the safety sense, which is great but slow.

I'm surprised the Russians never went anywhere with this technology. Their safety record is somewhat equal to your average town carnival, but they've made a lot of discoveries about living in space that the ISS uses.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Daemonik]

A traditional rigid module for the ISS is about 15 tons with 106 cubic meters of space. Bigelow's 330 module is 20 tons with 330 cubic meters of internal space. So 210% more internal volume for only 5 more tons of mass.

Filling that volume up can be done by several smaller rocket launches rather than 1 huge rocket launch for a traditional module, which is cheaper and easier to do. Furthermore, the internal components can be changed around unlike more traditional built in components.

There will still be call for the traditional rigid structures, especially for equipment it otherwise wouldn't be conceivable to send up individually. For large living space, hydroponics, or other general purpose zones the inflatable structures will be superior.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

"soft body" mechanics is far superior protection against detritus strikes

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

By who?

Whom.

Re: Bouncy castles on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

Titanium alloy of that plane shrinks when cold and expands when heated, not good for space.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you are quite wrong.
Metal is actually far more vulnerable to radiation than a number of fabrics that BA is using. The reason that it is that way, is that when metal is hit by gamma, it will give off other lower-speed particles. A number of fabrics have been designed to NOT do that. By not giving off particles, it means that they do not degrade.

Re:Bouncy castles on Mars

[spauldo]

There's a lot of people that think we should be taking a closer look at lava tubes on the moon as potential sites for bases. The same could be used on Mars. No radiation, stable temperature, protection from micrometeorites... seems a no-brainer, except we haven't actually explored them yet.

With less gravity, you can have larger caves. There is evidence for lava tubes on the moon that you could fit stadiums in.

Something like this could be a cost effective way of using natural caves and lava tubes as bases. If you want the fabric to press against the walls, though, you'd have to do some excavation and smoothing first, though.

Here it is

[tgibson]

An early prototype

Just think of the insurance rates

[Anonymous Coward]

Like all the teenage drivers in the universe rolled into one.

Quick! Somebody get AirBnB on the phone!

[jddj]

Just sayin'...

note to self

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave scissors at home when visiting Bigelow space station.

More seriously, it seems like it'd be a great solution for ISS-like stations with highly trained astronauts and careful safety processes in place. It gets you a lot of volume for not much launch mass. Probably ditto for small scale commercial use.

I wonder how well the idea extends to a larger population though. It seems like only a matter of time before some idiot, through accident, carelessness, or even on purpose, punctures the thing.

Re:note to self

[Pseudonymous Powers]

I wonder how well the idea extends to a larger population though. It seems like only a matter of time before some idiot, through accident, carelessness, or even on purpose, punctures the thing.

I mean, it's going to be exclusively astronauts and ultra-rich people in this thing for the foreseeable future. It's not like an astronaut has ever done anything crazy like putting on a diaper and waiting in a car for hours to ambush and murder their romantic rivals. And it's not like an ultra-rich person has ever done anything crazy like proposing we built a thirty-foot wall along the entire Mexican border whose likely cost would rival that of the original moon landing, and then insist that the Mexican government pay for it.

So just relax, guy.

The worst part

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the monkey state "security" center, AKA Banana Country NSA works for Google and Facebook to sell personal info, is that those assholes are making nobody hire me. Also there's a retarded that I have to nanny. The fuck dude. And I though that soccer was the only reason I hated this place.

Bulletproof Foam-filled Bounce module

[wasteoid]

pop a can of self-expanding bulletproof foam to fill up the walls of the new module, and you have arguable a safer module than the existing modules.

Re:Bulletproof Foam-filled Bounce module

[Firethorn]

I think you're not picturing the module correctly. It's like a balloon, which you work inside. It' doesn't have air chambers other than the main one they would operate in. There's no wall bladders to fill.

Other than that, the bulletproof foam isn't dispensed out of a can. It's created by a method of casting in a mold.

Fedex delivers cure for cancer

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, Fedex delivered a magic cure for cancer. Said a Fedex PR fluffer man: "Fedex's important role in this endeavor cannot be overstated. The cure for cancer has been a long hard expensive search and Fedex are happy to finally deliver on their promises today when we deliver this cancer drug. Now sign here.".

Tomorrow: Fedex will deliver on its promises of cold fusion!

Invalid Topic Title

[mykepredko]

Should be:

"SpaceX Delivers First Out Of This World Inflatable Room For Astronauts"

in a couple decades at Mars

[edittard]

in a couple decades at Mars

If I wrote like that I'd submit anonymously too.

How depressing

[pablo_max]

Listening to NASA talk about how they would like to have these in Mars in a "couple of decades" is just depressing.
Seriously, when did America become the country of thinking small?

A couple of decades? For F's sake, we went to the moon nearly 60 years ago! 60 freaking years later and we are not even up to the same level as before the microprocessor was invented.

Re:How depressing

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost as if progress in processing information is not comparable to the physical world. We don't have supersonic passenger transport anymore either.

I wonder why people are so eager to conflate two completely different subjects and draw conclusions that way.

We can have even better microprocessors than now and that still won't change a damn thing to physical reality.

Re: How depressing

[Anonymous Coward]

And in a couple of decades we won't have the internet anymore. We're rapidly running out of power and resources and the general public will find out that renewables are not and have never been the solution the hard way, when power gets rationed first and then cut off entirely. In 10 years people will become accustomed to having 1 hour of electricity in their homes and having to get their perishable goods from common ice rooms. Of course computers will be out of the question, and so will the internet. The good news is that people will probably learn to write properly again and in a generation or two we'll see healthier and better human specimens because the useless and the weak will have died out. As our technological civilizations enters the twilight and starts to slow down for the long endless night, we may well stop looking upwards and start appreciating the dirt in which we'll all be buried.

Re:How depressing

[Daemonik]

Yeah, we sent men to the moon 60 years ago.. and had no workable plan for actually staying there. It was all political theater, not a concerted effort to build a viable colony.

Mars is just as much theater really. It's going to be hellishly difficult to get people there and back again. Unless there is a VERY solid groundwork behind the effort, it'll be another flashy "We did this!" mission. NASA can't afford to make any mistakes in what might be their only chance to get funded for something like this for the next century, so they're taking their time.

TITAN Submarines!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exploring the seas of Titan by probes is far more BIG thinking, than trying to recreate a moon mission buzz by doing it on Mars.

Sending men to a place just for PR value is backward thinking.

Re:TITAN Submarines!

[Rei]

Indeed. I'm not opposed to missions designed for human settlement offworld - I actually think that's a great goal. But I am designed for "for the cameras" bread and circuses stuff. I'll put it simply: if you launch a habitat, and by the end of its lifespan (say, 20-30 years if you build it well) they haven't reached the capability to by and large rebuild the lion's share of that habitat, then you've wasted your money. You've just done a massively expensive systems test, which could have far more efficiently (money-wise) been conducted by robotic systems on Mars and mockups at home.

Meanwhile, there's a TREMENDOUS amount that we have yet to learn about our own solar system. Heck, look at Earth's twin Venus... it's almost embarrassing how little we know about it, in almost every respect, and it's the easiest planet to get to (about the same delta-V as Mars if you use aerocapture, but shorter transit times, more frequent launch windows, and more available sunlight; aerocapture is easier as well) And it's not like we don't know how to study it - Venera proved it for the surface, VEGA for the clouds, and there's been several orbiters. But we still know next to nothing about the nature of its lightning; we only know the most common elements of its clouds as a whole (not specific layers or lesser constituents), and there are potentially whole layers (such as surface hazes) that we're not even sure if they exist; we're not even sure whether the most significant cloud particle type (type 3) actually exists; we still don't know what's absorbing Venus's UV (polyatomic sulfur? Iron chlorides?); we think it's the most volcanically active planet in the solar system but we've only "maybe" been able to "kind of" observe one eruption; we think it may rain, snow, or ice out but we really don't know; we still don't know what causes a large portion of Venus's weird landforms; we still don't know what the "snow" is on Venus's mountains; we still don't know exactly why Venus is as it is today, so different from Earth (all we have is theories); and about fifty other really fundamental things. And it's right bloody next door.

Re:TITAN Submarines!

[Rei]

But I am designed for "for the cameras" bread and circuses stuff

Should read "But not for 'for the cameras' bread and circuses stuff". Started changing an earlier sentence but didn't fully erase it...

inflatable astronaut

[Tablizer]

I misread it as "first inflatable astronaut". That auto-pilot scene from "Airplane" came to mind.

Must we re-invent the wheel?

[Anonymous Coward]

... Let's figure out how to build structures like space stations on a larger scale or a moon base ...

The Chinese are planning to do just that

Why should we re-invent the wheel?

Let the Chinese do it, and after they complete the building we chase them out and occupy the structures that they have just built

World's first?

[mick129]

I have seen a bounce house before. They're actually pretty common. Bounce houses have some rules about rough play, but can still be used by astronauts. So this is definitely not the world's first inflatable room, for astronauts or otherwise. Perhaps this is "Space's First Inflatable Room"? Or more accurately LEO's first.

Re:World's first?

[mick129]

Overrated at 1? Ouch.

Anyone has the latest news on the 'life in a box'?

[Anonymous Coward]

On 2007 Bigelow Aerospace sent up the 2nd inflatible space module, Genesis II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

On board of the space module they have 'life in a box' which includes habitats for three organisms:

* The Madagascar hissing cockroach
*,The South African flat rock scorpion, Hadogenes troglodytes
and
* A colony of seed-harvester ants, Pogonomyrmex californicus, along with the queen ant for long-term colonization possibilities

Back in In February 2011, Bigelow reported that the vehicle had "performed flawlessly in terms of pressure maintenance and thermal control-environmental containment."

Fast forward 5 years, now that it's 2016 --- I wonder if anyone has any more recent news on the 'life in a box'?

The link which I can find for the 'life in a box" is below -http://web.archive.org/web/20070513040221/http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/life_death/life_in_a_box.php

I am just curious :)

News: DHL delivers the first prototype to users

[Megol]

The inflatable module design is interesting, the delivery company not.

Re:News: DHL delivers the first prototype to users

[Anonymous Coward]

My thoughts exactly. It isn't SpaceX's technology, they just brought it for Biglelow.

Re:Anyone has the latest news on the 'life in a bo

[Rei]

* A colony of seed-harvester ants, Pogonomyrmex californicus, along with the queen ant for long-term colonization possibilities

  I wonder if anyone has any more recent news on the 'life in a box'?

It didn't turn out so well...

Re: News: DHL delivers the first prototype to user

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for that thought Jeff bozos.....

Typical Imperialist American thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

Make the house grow to accommodate their morbid obesity.
Only Nicolas Maduro can stop the Americans from consuming the world.

Bigelow Genesis modules

[mknewman]

What about Bigelow's Genesis 1 and 2 inflatable modules. They have been on orbit for many years. http://bigelowaerospace.com/bi...

Re:Bigelow Genesis modules

[Anonymous Coward]

I immediately searched the comments for this. Indeed they've already launched inflatable "space stations", but to be fair, they haven't been used. I'm not sure this one will either though, which makes it, not-a-first.

Planned Testing?

[Drethon]

I'm curious what kind of testing is involved? I'm assuming that having people board the module will not happen for some time until they are pretty sure it can't suffer a catastrophic blowout. Unless they've already done vacuum testing on the ground?