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With Falcon 9 making such a big spash the NY Times has now discovered Bigelow Aerospace of the expandable space habitats & private space stations. Not entirely on point, but close enough.
A Sundancer, one of the modules shown below, will go up on a Falcon 9 in 2014 as the first part of a much larger space station - working name Skywalker.
Bigelow already has 2 working test modules in polar orbit: Genesis I and Genesis II.
Station assembly & lunar base concept images bottom
NY Times story......
IN THE FUTURE Prototypes of Bigelow Aerospace’s Sundancer habitat, which has an inflated volume of 180 cubic meters, at a hangar in North Las Vegas.
Bob Bigelow
Bigelow Aerospace control center
Sundancer and the Orion Lite (could also be a Dragon or Dream Chaser)
Sundancer/spacecraft stack preparing to receive the docking node + propulsion bus
Let's get a better look at that node+propulsion bus....
Station core preparing to receive a BA-330 habitat - 330 cu/meters each
Space Station Skywalker assembled - room for a crew of 12 and 3 more modules
Lunar base concept
Lunar lander concept
A Sundancer, one of the modules shown below, will go up on a Falcon 9 in 2014 as the first part of a much larger space station - working name Skywalker.
Bigelow already has 2 working test modules in polar orbit: Genesis I and Genesis II.
Station assembly & lunar base concept images bottom
NY Times story......
IN THE FUTURE Prototypes of Bigelow Aerospace’s Sundancer habitat, which has an inflated volume of 180 cubic meters, at a hangar in North Las Vegas.
In New Space Race, Enter the Entrepreneurs
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. — At the Bigelow Aerospace factory here, the full-size space station mockups sitting on the warehouse floor look somewhat like puffy white watermelons. The interiors offer a hint of what spacious living in space might look like.
“Every astronaut we have come in here just says, ‘Wow,’ †said Robert T. Bigelow, the company founder. “They can’t believe the size of this thing.â€
Four years from now, the company plans for real modules to be launched and assembled into the solar system’s first private space station. Paying customers — primarily nations that do not have the money or expertise to build a space program from scratch — would arrive a year later.
In 2016, a second, larger station would follow. The two Bigelow stations would then be home to 36 people at a time — six times as many as currently live on the International Space Station.
If this business plan unfolds as it is written — the company has two fully inflated test modules in orbit already — Bigelow will be buying 15 to 20 rocket launchings in 2017 and in each year after, providing ample business for the private companies that the Obama administration would like to finance for the transportation of astronauts into orbit — the so-called commercial crew initiative.
President Obama’s budget proposal for 2011 calls for investing $6 billion over five years for probably two or more companies to develop spacecraft capable of carrying people into space. Then, instead of operating its own systems, like the space shuttles, NASA would buy rides for its astronauts on these commercial space taxis.
“This represents the entrance of the entrepreneurial mind-set into a field that is poised for rapid growth and new jobs,†Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said in February. “And NASA will be driving competition, opening new markets and access to space and catalyzing the potential of American industry.â€
Officials have been careful not to say their commercial crew plan relies on a market beyond NASA, but for now, Bigelow appears to be the only non-NASA buyer for commercial crew services.
“Nobody,†Mr. Bigelow said of competition he sees on the horizon.
>
> LOTS more....(3 pages total)
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. — At the Bigelow Aerospace factory here, the full-size space station mockups sitting on the warehouse floor look somewhat like puffy white watermelons. The interiors offer a hint of what spacious living in space might look like.
“Every astronaut we have come in here just says, ‘Wow,’ †said Robert T. Bigelow, the company founder. “They can’t believe the size of this thing.â€
Four years from now, the company plans for real modules to be launched and assembled into the solar system’s first private space station. Paying customers — primarily nations that do not have the money or expertise to build a space program from scratch — would arrive a year later.
In 2016, a second, larger station would follow. The two Bigelow stations would then be home to 36 people at a time — six times as many as currently live on the International Space Station.
If this business plan unfolds as it is written — the company has two fully inflated test modules in orbit already — Bigelow will be buying 15 to 20 rocket launchings in 2017 and in each year after, providing ample business for the private companies that the Obama administration would like to finance for the transportation of astronauts into orbit — the so-called commercial crew initiative.
President Obama’s budget proposal for 2011 calls for investing $6 billion over five years for probably two or more companies to develop spacecraft capable of carrying people into space. Then, instead of operating its own systems, like the space shuttles, NASA would buy rides for its astronauts on these commercial space taxis.
“This represents the entrance of the entrepreneurial mind-set into a field that is poised for rapid growth and new jobs,†Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said in February. “And NASA will be driving competition, opening new markets and access to space and catalyzing the potential of American industry.â€
Officials have been careful not to say their commercial crew plan relies on a market beyond NASA, but for now, Bigelow appears to be the only non-NASA buyer for commercial crew services.
“Nobody,†Mr. Bigelow said of competition he sees on the horizon.
>
> LOTS more....(3 pages total)
Bigelow Aerospace control center
Sundancer and the Orion Lite (could also be a Dragon or Dream Chaser)
Sundancer/spacecraft stack preparing to receive the docking node + propulsion bus
Let's get a better look at that node+propulsion bus....
Station core preparing to receive a BA-330 habitat - 330 cu/meters each
Space Station Skywalker assembled - room for a crew of 12 and 3 more modules
Lunar base concept
Lunar lander concept