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Orbital Resort to Launch by 2010
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Feb 16, 2005 11:09 PM
from the gravity-free-service dept.
from the gravity-free-service dept.
Neil Halelamien writes "Popular Science has a cover feature on self-made billionaire and space enthusiast Robert Bigelow (who's been mentioned before on Slashdot). The article has new info on Bigelow's plans to launch a 'CSS Skywalker' orbital resort by 2010 and sell space habitats to others, such as scientists, manufacturers, Hollywood producers, and countries. The habitats will be made of inflatable modules with multilayered kevlar-like walls. A prototype habitat will be launching on a SpaceX Falcon V next year. To help ensure cost-effective access to the station, Bigelow is also running the $50 million America's Space Prize. In the long run, he plans to use the modules as the basis for space yachts and moon cruisers."
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Can't wait (Score:5, Funny)
Space amazes me, and good luck to Robert Bigelo.
Re:Can't wait (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Can't wait (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Can't wait (Score:3, Funny)
Earth to Moon - $79
Back to Earth - $7,900,000
Re:Can't wait (Score:4, Funny)
One way trip to Vegas: $79
One way trip to the moon: $79
Return trip: Priceless
Parent
I don't understand why people want to go to space? (Score:4, Interesting)
It has an enormous impact on the body from the G force, gamma rays, muscle atrophy, and long term consequences. (Doesn't NASA advise astronauts to have children before going into space, due to the impact on reproductive DNA?)
And when you're up there, aren't you just going to see what going to an IMAX theatre could show you, just in rather less comfort?
I don't know, maybe I'm being unadventurous. Pioneering is cool and I wholeheartedly support the professionals going up there, but "space tourism," I'm just not sure I get it.
I'm quite happy for the Neils and Buzzes of our time to do it for me.
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Re:I don't understand why people want to go to spa (Score:4, Funny)
How's this then: put up your habitat, then give it about 1/6th G equivalent spin.
Many, many people have thought it likely that reduced gravity will extend the human lifetime signifigantly, like maybe even a 50% increase.
Reduced gravity would also make some of the problems the elderly face less of a bother; getting around would be MUCH easier.
If someone puts something like this up, I can easily see the upper-class elderly (who are capable of making the trip) putting there $$$ into a trust to pay for their living in orbit.
And, when their money runs out, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to send them back to 1 G, so you can just shove 'em out the airlock.
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Re:I don't understand why people want to go to spa (Score:4, Insightful)
1: Bush is pushing for expanded funding for NASA, even as he cuts all other domestic spending.
2: Bush is claiming there is a Social Security crises because we'll soon have too many old people collecting and not enough young people paying.
BUSH WANTS TO JETTISON ALL OUR OLD PEOPLE INTO SPACE!
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Re:I don't understand why people want to go to spa (Score:3, Interesting)
For the same reasons Europeans colonized the Americas:
1. Economic. Asteroids contain tons of minerals. The Moon's surface contains large quantities of He3 (although an efficient method of mining it as yet to be invented), and its low (relative to Earth) gravity well and lack of atmosphere makes it easier to get things into space. (The first Space Elevator may be built from the Moon to (actually, through) the Earth-Moon Lagrange point (L1, I think) out of
Re:Can't wait (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty cool... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pretty cool... (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems like a good idea when you read about it, but it's really got no structural rigidity, and almost everything we've built in space so far has been first and foremost a floating ROCK. Recently we've added more composite materials due to their strenght and relative weight reduction, but even these materials aren't seen very often.
There are also a lot of other conside
Re:Pretty cool... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Pretty cool... (Score:4, Informative)
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Possibly the Chinese government (Score:3, Informative)
According to this article [aviationnow.com], there have been some negotiations with the Chinese government. I believe the docking module is already being designed to fit with a Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft.
From the article:
China is eyeing participation in new privately funded U.S. space ventures, such as the Bigelow Aerospace inflatable habitat for biotech or oth
Sounds like a Grand Day Out (Score:5, Funny)
So? (Score:4, Funny)
I like this guy (Score:5, Insightful)
And since this is a private enterprise, it should come out much cheaper then anything NASA can dream of(probablly not as safe though, but NASA's stuff is very safe so its kinda hard to compete with them on that front.)
Re:I like this guy (Score:3, Interesting)
On the safety side, deaths from civilian spaceflight are inevitable. I doubt it will be much less safe statistically than NASA, though if successful on a large scale, civilian launches could easily surpass the number of humans put into space by governments (around 500 or so, I think).
Governments and insurance companies will want to reg
He has one big problem to sort out first (Score:3)
Oh and the inevitable "That's no moon! It's a space station!" jokes.
Too bad, you should read more (Score:3, Informative)
While I think that he can do what NASA no longer is allowed to do (take major chances with lives), you have to give the credit to who researched and developed it. This guy is simply moving to production with it. But I hope that he can really start the space drive.
First thought: (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to say it cant be done.. but 2010 ? Gotta love the marketing departments.. oh wait, no.. they put impossible demands on us...
orbital farms (Score:5, Funny)
permaveal 3000
chicken a 'la 'blimp.
Re:orbital farms (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:orbital farms (Score:4, Funny)
Absolutely! Imagine logging on to SpaceFriedChicken.com, punching in your latitude, longitude, and credit card number, and then holding a baseball glove out the window to catch the chicken thrown down from orbit. (The heat of re-entry sears in the juicy flavor!)
Parent
Robert Bigelow (Score:5, Funny)
A Giant Leap for Bigelow (Score:5, Interesting)
Robert Bigelow gained his fortune from owning Budget Suites of America - a discount motel chain.
Only in America could someone go from renting rooms at 49 dollars a night to building a Space Resort.
Pretty Cool.
I know what's next... (Score:4, Funny)
We carry a harpoon,
For they ain't no whales
So we tell tall tales
And sing our whaling tune.
Maybe it's just me, (Score:4, Interesting)
Also... (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno about you, but I'd really like the walls around me that contain my breathing air and keep me warm and from exploding into the void of space made of something nice and hard... like reinforced steel. Maby it's some sort of expandable material over a hard superstructure, but then there are some other issues:
The article mentions:
"lightweight but extremely strong and long-lived inflatable "soft goods" to form modules made of proprietary advanced aerospace materials"
Maby i'm just a traditionalist holding back the frontier, but man, that sounds like a bubble just waiting to be punctured by one of those little paint chips zipping around the earth at a million miles an hour (from old missions, etc). Support structure or no, if you puncture that balloon it vents, and I'm inside, and i will NOT be a happy camper.
Also, I'm wondering what kind of radiation protection these things provide. These materials sound "thin and lightweight" which is what they want for good launch weight, but thin often means poor radiation blocking ability.
My opinion ? Keep the crew in something nice and solid.. keep supplies in these inflato-things, and make sure they can be quickly locked down from the rest of the ship/station/whatever.
Nothing New (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Also... (Score:3, Insightful)
For the meteorites: The problem is that those shields can fail, and when they do, I'd rather that the paint embed itself in hull of steel than a easily puncturable hull of some organic chemistry polymer (sorry, I'm a chemist).
For the radiation: User-installable water based rad shields? Lets just hope we dont "forget" to install them, hmm ? Plus, the weight of the w
Re:Also... (Score:4, Informative)
Also I think by the phrase "User Installable" the operator is meant, not the guest.
Parent
Re:Also... (Score:5, Informative)
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Maybe it can absorb the impact (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously an object the size of a quarter traveling at tens of thousands of miles an hour may be a different story but maybe you can design these things
The Merrits of Inflatable Habitats (Score:3, Informative)
An inflatable structure makes complete sense. For starters, it works around one of the major design constraints imposed by roc
Inflatable Space Resort Guest Rule #1 (Score:5, Funny)
Playing Darts is Strictly Forbidden!
Re:Inflatable Space Resort Guest Rule #1 (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.chron.com/cgi-bin/auth/story.mpl/con t en t/interactive/space/iss/1998/980824.html
"Never mind that all this luxury would be in a balloon that would be in an Earth orbit littered with dangerous space junk.
The 1-foot-thick shell would be "bulletproof" in space, de la Fuente says. The 17 or so layers would be made of ceramic fabric, polyurethane foam, polymer film and Kevlar, a tough material used in police vests, and be better than metal.
"This is very different from a child's bal
Assume this happens (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no way if she had to write a paper back in her school days, about the future, that if she mentioned this, se would be told she has such a creative mind but not realistic.
Obviously I am not the first person to say we;ve come a long ways in X years (and in some ways we haven't moved!), but this is insane.
It makes the future more exciting for those of us younger because we cannot even imagine how quickly we are going to see new technology become realities.
At this rate I say why stop at the moon? I'm saving my cash for a trip to Mars!
Re:Assume this happens (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but had you asked a schoolkid from 1969 to write a paper about space travel in the year 2005 and the kid managed predict it accurately he/she would have been given an F by the teacher for being completely, unreasonably, pathetically pessimistic (and possibly expelled for being a subversive communist when they write that all US orbital launch capability in 2005 was bought from Russia and Europe!)
Back then most people expected us to have a permanent moon base by now. Manned missions to Mars would have been assumed as well. Somewhere in there we seriously lost momentum.
Jedidiah.
Parent
Nice idea, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Is society ready? (Score:3, Interesting)
But society has changed. Our values have changed. I can just imagine the great cry WHEN (not if) some of these spacecraft start failing, and people start dying. That's what happens when you rush to compete for a prize that other competitors also want - shortcuts get taken, like they did historically, and people get killed.
Now, way back when, it wasn't such a big deal if a plane dropped into the atlantic, or crashed on some farm somewhere. The density of our population has increased a bit since then and although our planet is still primarily ocean, there's a greater chance of having the remains of some failed launch or deorbit falling on a populated area than before. Or if a space station design fails to meet some contingency or other, causing all inhabitants to perish. Ooops we forgot about that...
Are we ready for this? Is it a risk that we are each willing to take in a personal sense - in order to fully open up travel to space? Or is everyone going to whine at the first accident, causing all this pioneering to get legislated and regulated to oblivion?
He doesn't need to succeed. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be impressed if he was successful, but he doesn't need to succeed. He just needs to get closer than anyone else ever has. The first person who can demonstrate the possibility of commercial gains in space will be doing us all an enormous favor.
I've always felt that the non-exploitation pact--that international agreement that says it's a Bad Thing to stripmine on Mars--was a really bad idea. Taking the possibility of commercial gain out of space travel is an excellent way to ensure that all space travel is done by governments and universities. I don't trust governments to do the job efficiently, and I doubt many universities could pull it off without strings-attached grants and funding.
The best way to ensure, over the long run, maximized efficiency and high-level accountability is to leave the job to private enterprise. Companies competing for a profit will find ways to do things cheaper, faster and safer. The trade-off is that there are more likely to be some really bad ideas getting launched, and in space, no one can hear you scream... but that's another detail. Private enterprise might be more willing to take the risks that a post-Challenger United States (for example) is not.
But private enterprise won't even bother if there's not a bottom line. So I say, encourage the strip-mining of Mars (hell, better Mars than one's hometown, don't you think?). Encourage orbiting vacation spots for the wealthy. Encourage claim-staking and competition.
Once we're already up there and comfortable, then we can let the galactic treehuggers cry foul. But let's get up there first.
Jurisdictions (Score:3, Insightful)
Being off-world, will they legally be able to host space gigolos?
Private Transhab (Score:5, Insightful)
In many respects, NASA already laid a lot of the ground work for his idea.
Nuclear Rockets ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Another great use for GCNR rockets would be interplanetary trips such as a Mars mission. Their cargo capacity would allow for a tremendous amount of supplies and equipment. Transit time would be half that of a conventional ship, reducing the effects of prolonged zero-gee and cosmic radiation exposure, and a host of other problems. The ability to make a powered landing on Mars would eliminate the need for an aerobraking system, Apollo-style lander/return combination or other engineering. The crew could fly there, land, take off and return home in a single vehicle, just like in all those old black and white space movies.
popular comix (Score:3, Insightful)
Generally each story is written like a typical fox news sound bite
The fact that its a lead story in this magazine pretty much gaurantees it wont be happening anywhere near as soon as what was written.
Re:popular comix (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:It makes you wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:It makes you wonder... (Score:5, Informative)
MicroMeteoroid and Orbital Debris (MMOD) shield - "Composed of five layers of graphite-fiber composites separated by foam spacers, the MMOD is the outermost section of Nautilus's hull. Schneider's crew's original TransHab design had more stopping power than did aluminum three inches thick. Ground-testing of Bigelow's MMOD has shown that it can stop impacts by 5/8-inch-diameter aluminum pellets fired at it at 6.4 kilometers a second, several times as fast as a rifle bullet. No rigid spacecraft design can match this performance, and it's one of the reasons Nautilus has an expected life span of at least 15 years."
Parent