Bigelow Launching New Company To Sell Private Space Stations (popularmechanics.com)

hyperclocker shares a report from Popular Mechanics: The future of spacecraft in lower Earth orbit (LEO) looks to be an increasingly commercial affair. Bigelow Aerospace, a Las Vegas-based company that builds livable space habitats, has now created a spinoff company known as Bigelow Space Operations (BSO). BSO will market and operate any space habitats that Bigelow sells. The creation of BSO signals that Bigelow is preparing for a future of commercial space living. Recently leaked NASA documents show that the Trump Administration wants to convert the International Space Station into a commercial venture, and BSO is betting that businesses including private scientific ventures and hotels will be interested in creating a profit above the Earth. A prototype Bigelow habitat, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), has been connected to the ISS since 2016. It's proven such a successful addition that last year NASA extended its contract for an additional three years. But Bigelow is thinking past the BEAM. In its press release announcing BSO, it highlights its planned launches of the B330-1 and B330-2, spacecraft with 6-person capacity, in 2021.

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Re:More clutter in space, great

[TWX]

There are manufacturing processes that do not work so well when gravity is a factor, for such things as Foam Metals. It's also possible that such habitats would be useful for orbiting platforms for workers that deal with the machines that would do space-based resource extraction, though admittedly that may be quite some time in the making.

I doubt that anyone actually involved thinks this will be inexpensive. To the contrary, this stuff will probably be very expensive, but research and development usually is expensive.

I'm curious if Falcon Heavy and a suitable capsule ever get man-rated, if a new space station could be constructed further out and cost-effectively crewed and resupplied. Something out as far as geostationary first, then possibly an Earth-Moon Lagrange point like L4 or L5 where simple stationkeeping wouldn't require much if any fuel. It's not going to be easy or cheap, but if launching the rockets needed to put payloads that far out becomes much less expensive than it historically has cost then it might not be entirely unfeasible.