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All over the space sites there has been a buzz over Lockheed Martin and Bigelow getting together for manned launches to Bigelows inflatable space stations. Lockheed for its part is looking at man rating their Atlas V and helping Bigelow explore launching them on Lockheeds birds.
Turns out that more was going on behind the scenes.
Much of this was started back in July '06 when Bigelow himself said he'd be interested in something like a "CEV derivative" as a way to get people to his inflatable space station.
Little did we know that back in May of '06 Lockheed had produced this PDF proposing an 8 passenger "Passenger Transfer Vehicle", or PTV, to be launched on their Atlas V 401 booster. The PTV appears to be precisely the "CEV derivative" Bigelow was talking about. No doubt that PDF circulated around Bigelow as by September '06 they announced their cooperation.
Remember that Lockheed is also building the CEV/Orion for NASA. While the shell differs from the CEV/Orion one can bet that a bit of "parallel development" would be going on with some of Orions guts finding a way into PTV, reducing Lockheeds dev costs significantly.
Nice move Lockheed
Now things are abuzz again with news that Bigelow is drastically speeding up of their program to launch man-rated inflatable modules, with some getting launched as soon as 2009 with their 180 cu/m "Sundancer". Following that comes their 330 cu/m Nautilus module, and Bigelows assembly hub can attach up to 6 Nautilus modules for a total volume of 1980 cu/m, or twice the size of the finished ISS.
With a station that size they could rent research space or even whole modules to companies or non-spacefaring nations.
McSpaceStation
One could say that Bigelow and Lockheed seem very serious about taking LEO for their own.
Of course the next question is: why, other than pride, is NASA spending money developing the Ares I when they could be using either Lockheed or Boeing boosters that have been man rated? Seems at least one of them is doing the man rating on their tab anyhow.
PTV "stack":
PTV on the pad (IMO it looks a bit like the Jupiter 2):
PTV in orbit:
Bigelow Station (5 module with several Soyuz):
Turns out that more was going on behind the scenes.
Much of this was started back in July '06 when Bigelow himself said he'd be interested in something like a "CEV derivative" as a way to get people to his inflatable space station.
Little did we know that back in May of '06 Lockheed had produced this PDF proposing an 8 passenger "Passenger Transfer Vehicle", or PTV, to be launched on their Atlas V 401 booster. The PTV appears to be precisely the "CEV derivative" Bigelow was talking about. No doubt that PDF circulated around Bigelow as by September '06 they announced their cooperation.
Remember that Lockheed is also building the CEV/Orion for NASA. While the shell differs from the CEV/Orion one can bet that a bit of "parallel development" would be going on with some of Orions guts finding a way into PTV, reducing Lockheeds dev costs significantly.
Nice move Lockheed
Now things are abuzz again with news that Bigelow is drastically speeding up of their program to launch man-rated inflatable modules, with some getting launched as soon as 2009 with their 180 cu/m "Sundancer". Following that comes their 330 cu/m Nautilus module, and Bigelows assembly hub can attach up to 6 Nautilus modules for a total volume of 1980 cu/m, or twice the size of the finished ISS.
With a station that size they could rent research space or even whole modules to companies or non-spacefaring nations.
McSpaceStation
One could say that Bigelow and Lockheed seem very serious about taking LEO for their own.
Of course the next question is: why, other than pride, is NASA spending money developing the Ares I when they could be using either Lockheed or Boeing boosters that have been man rated? Seems at least one of them is doing the man rating on their tab anyhow.
PTV "stack":
PTV on the pad (IMO it looks a bit like the Jupiter 2):
PTV in orbit:
Bigelow Station (5 module with several Soyuz):