Feels like Bigelow Aerospace was maybe 5 or 10 years too early. Now that launch prices have come down and people take commercial space stations seriously would be the time. I wonder what that guy is up to… hopefully enjoying retirement.
GrumpyScientist on
Is it still attached? the article is from 8 years ago. What ever happened to it?
I-seddit on
How do they avoid puncturing it by accident?
rocketsocks on
Fun fact: inflatable habitat tech was pioneered by NASA as part of the Space Exploration Initiative in the ’90s which led to the development of the “TransHAB” (a large, inflatable habitat for a potential Mars mission). The other aspects of the mission design were so expensive ($450 billion over 20/30 years) that Congress absolutely nuked it from orbit, culminating with completely banning further work on TransHAB in 1999, forcing the tech to be sold off to the private sector.
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Feels like Bigelow Aerospace was maybe 5 or 10 years too early. Now that launch prices have come down and people take commercial space stations seriously would be the time. I wonder what that guy is up to… hopefully enjoying retirement.
Is it still attached? the article is from 8 years ago. What ever happened to it?
How do they avoid puncturing it by accident?
Fun fact: inflatable habitat tech was pioneered by NASA as part of the Space Exploration Initiative in the ’90s which led to the development of the “TransHAB” (a large, inflatable habitat for a potential Mars mission). The other aspects of the mission design were so expensive ($450 billion over 20/30 years) that Congress absolutely nuked it from orbit, culminating with completely banning further work on TransHAB in 1999, forcing the tech to be sold off to the private sector.
There were earlier design attempts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflatable_space_habitat
Cool, I remember watching the pressure testing of this concept like a decade ago on TV