More on Inflatable Space Hotels 342
StJefferson writes "It's anything but a traditional Budget Suites room, with a price tag projected to be somewhere in the range of US$50,000-100,000 per night. But Bob Bigelow's inflatable space habs will get their first trial next November, and are expected to go into production in 2008. There's even speculation that Bigelow is in talks with Burt Rutan regarding the small problem of getting customers to the door of his high-flying outposts. And the best part? Bigelow's doing this all on his own, as a private entrepreneurial venture. He's only answerable to his wife regarding the wisdom of this investment, and 'so far, she's on board.' Remind you Heinlein fans of anyone?" We've mentioned this guy before.
DSOTM. (Score:5, Funny)
Phone call to friend: "Hey man, I am watching a KILLER laser light show at a Pink Floyd concert where they are playing on the dark side of the moon!"
MOONUNIT 555-555-1969
Friend: "The spoofed CallerID from your VoIP Asterik box is getting old and lay off the acid man, you're going to rot your brain. Next you are going to be telling me that you paid $1 million to spend a weekend in an inflatable hotel room in space."
Wrong! (Score:2, Interesting)
Moon Unit [moonzappa.com] is his daughter
But yeah, that's what I was wondering.
Jewwwws in Spaaacceee!!! Well, maybe not, but sti (Score:5, Funny)
Will it be full of colourful balls and do you have to take your shoes off before going in?
He seems serious (Score:5, Interesting)
Cheers,
Erick
Re:He seems serious (Score:2)
Either that or he's a nut. A rich nut.
Re:He seems serious (Score:2)
Who's this guy, anyhow? When I RTFA all I could get is that he's a "motel tycoon". Which motel is that? Must be pretty lucrative, if he can just spend $500M like that, without any assurance of a return.
Re:He seems serious (Score:2)
Is this the Bob Bigelow of NIDS [nidsci.org]?
Re:He seems serious (Score:2)
Re:He seems serious (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't believe you. Individuals have always been ab
Think different, or something. (Score:2, Funny)
Hold on, I've got to get my patent attorney on the phone...
That price better (Score:4, Funny)
Re:That price better (Score:4, Funny)
Re:That price better (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That price better (Score:5, Funny)
Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong, I am glad to see that private industry is getting into space since the government is doing it's typical job of constantly cutting funding for science and diverting it to better and more efficient ways to kill people. The question is really how many people can pay to go to space and what will they do there?
What to do in space... (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory Gibson Quote (Score:2, Funny)
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight. ;-)
Re:What to do in space... (Score:2)
Wish I had mod points at the moment... that's Insightful, not merely Funny!
Altitude 62 miles (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
So everything that could be harmful to the biosphere, requires lots of energy, hard vacuum or cryogenic temperatures will be more economical in space once the transportation problem is solved.
The first thing will probably be stuff like genetic engineering and bioweapons research. Then there will be solar power satellites. And once you get these in place most of the heavy industry will move to space (high earth orbit, to be precise).
Just think about the advantages: you can build a huge industrial complex without people suing you about the noise, the pollution etc.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
And as an added bonus, maybe all the pollution and garbage that gets dumped into space as a result will give the Earth a cool-looking set of rings.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're idea sounds a hell of a lot better and cheaper than decent acoustic insulation.
Pardon the sarcasm above, but I'm just not buying it. Your idea seems too far-fetched even for sci-fi.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
It would severely cut costs if the materials come from a higher orbit, IIRC, the moon has quite a lot of construction materials such as Iron. You could mine the materials from there, and mass drive them to your factories. "Rare" materials could potentially be mined in large quantities from passing asteroids. Given the DeltaV necessary to move the material into the proper orbit, these materials probably wo
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Depends where you get those materials. If you attach a solar-powered mass-driver into one of the large (10 kilometers or so in diameter) metal asteroid and transfer it to Earth orbit, you have nearly endless supply of almost-pure ore.
And lets not forget that the heavy minerals in Earth have sunk to the core and are thus rare in the surface, whereas asteroids have them aplenty. This allows producing things that simply couldn't be mass-produced in Earth due to lack of raw materials.
And once you do finish emptying that 10-kilometer asteroid, are you out of luck ? No ! You send the mass-driver back to the asteroid belt to get you another, and sell the empty shell of the asteroid (you were a smart person and left the outermost kilometer or so untouched, only broken by a mine shaft to the interior) to serve as a hull for a space colony (or a really big spaceship).
Industry is happy because it has virtually unlimited resources and no concern for the environment; the enviromentalists are happy because the industry has moved its big dirty factories away; consumers are happy because they can get stuff cheap; and the geeks are happy because there is space colonies, factories and travel. Arabs won't be happy because we will most likely switch to using either hydrogen (because with sunpower satellites electricity will be practically free, and hydrogen can be easily mass-produced by electrolyzing water) or better batteries made with all these new materials and zero-g construction methods, but with dependence of oil gone, who cares ?-)
Oh, and you can deliver your goods anywhere on the world by packing them into re-entry capsules and dropping.
Acoustic insulation, and pollution filters, and electric bills, and transporting raw materials and finished goods...
Yes, it is starting to sound better.
You did knew that one purpose of current and past space stations is to examine the possibilities of zero-g manufacturing ?
Sarcams will bite its wielder if uttered without caution :).
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
The VCR took off because of porn
The internet took off because of porn
Space tourism will take of because of Sex.
Why? --- one word --- "fuck" (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why? --- one word --- "fuck" (Score:2)
Wish I had points this morning. This is funny.
Question though, what would one do with the penguin? Or do I not want to know? I guess there's no laws against that stuff in space.
wbs.
Re:Why? --- one word --- "fuck" (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
I can't afford it, but if I could, what would I do there? Have an absolutely incredible experience, that's what. Keep the laser-light show as well, I don't need that, just let me get *up there*!!
Re:Why? (Score:2)
There are some people, it seems, whom I will never understand.
Don't run with scissors... (Score:4, Funny)
--<POP>--
they have that covered... (Score:5, Funny)
they have that covered... they're bringing a micro-bruce-willis
Re:Don't run with scissors... (Score:5, Informative)
Tests with the NASA transhab design have shown that multi-layered inflatables are more resistant to space debris than aluminium hulls. That should come as no surprise since the materials involved have much more (mass specific) tensile strength than aluminium.
Have you ever seen a flak vest made from aluminium?
Re:Don't run with scissors... (Score:2, Informative)
Vacuum flasks are made of glass because they need to be rigid; the air outside is trying to get in, the flask is in compression. Space balloons are made of fabric because the air inside is trying to get out, the balloon is in tension.
If the space balloon is normal sea level air pressure inside, we have inflated it to a whopping 15 psi. My bike tires can take 60 psi, a 2l coke bottle can take about 200 psi.
Re:Don't run with scissors... (Score:3, Informative)
But it is not as bad as it sounds. First of all space debris is not designed to penetrate armor. Usually it is quite small stuff.
And when a piece of space debris hits the outer shell of your space station it instantly vaporizes. So the inner shells of your space station just have to cope with vapor.
Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL (Score:2, Insightful)
If they would make that and NASA used it, they would be plenty rich with all the fame to go with it.
Without that, their inventions are like thought experiments... they'd be better off conducting the Schrodinger's Cat experiment with two ants.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL (Score:2)
I read "Rich from inventing a better shuttle?" as "Rich from inventing a beer shuttle?"
"Damn straight!" thought I.
Re:Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL (Score:5, Informative)
And even if these efforts all fail, there are plenty of relatively cheap launchers available today, most notably the russian proton [ilslaunch.com] and the zenit sea launch [sea-launch.com].
And we most definitely do not need a new shuttle. We need cheap access to space, and the shuttle was a total failure in this regard.
Re:Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL (Score:2)
And even if these efforts all fail, there are plenty of relatively cheap launchers available today, most notably the russian proton [ilslaunch.com] and the zenit sea launch [sea-launch.com].
Both Russian launchers have experienced failures recently. More likely candidates for economical, reliable heavy lift launchers are derivitives of the Atlas V and Delta IV.
Re:Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL (Score:2)
A proton flight can be had for as little as 20 million USD. A comparable atlas or delta costs upwards of 100 million USD.
And by the way: most failures with the russian launchers were with the last stage, which you would not need anyway for low earth orbit flights.
Re:Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL (Score:3, Interesting)
Do we? Let's think for a moment. They floated the thing up there. It's got enough lift to carry everyone on board. WAIT! I've got an idea! Why don't we build another blimp to get people up and down?
Honestly, it isn't that hard. As Rutan proved, getting up high enough is the least of your concerns. We can easily build cheap and reusable vehicles to do it. The reason why craft like the Space Shuttle are so powerful and complex is that they have to *orbit*. Orbiting is more or less the
Re:This is no hot air ballon. (Score:2, Informative)
It is HARD to read geosync - that is why you did not see the shuttle going up to fix or retrieve broken communications sats, as the delta-V needed far exceeds the shuttle's ability.
Re:This is no hot air ballon. (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition, this could seriously impact the number of people he could take up to his station at a time. The Space Shuttle currently has the most powerful space engines
Re:Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL (Score:2)
If a company would want to build a new shuttle they would have to first go through all the steps necessary to get the right knowledge.
Aside from this, who says the shuttle concept is what we really need?
Re:Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL (Score:4, Informative)
Me, for one. So did my astronautical design professor. Our design project was to design a system to launch into space for no more than $5,000 / lb (current cost ~$10,000 / lb).
We were working on systems for satellite payloads, not people, but 5 out of the 6 teams wrote viable proposals that met the (realistic) criteria of the RFP, largely by cutting a ton of energy expenditure by starting by flying in the same direction the Earth orbits to an altitude where the air is considerably thinner, and firing the big rockets from there.
The reason we need a new concept is because we keep sending things straight up from the ground, which has massive energy costs without any lift. It works much better to launch from a higher altitude - you still have to overcome gravity, but when you make the send-off to space you don't have to pack as much fuel (read: expensive) because you're already at a speed contributing to orbit. Cutting fuel cuts cost so much not because you don't have to pay for the fuel as much as you don't have to pay to launch the extra fuel with more fuel, which you need more fuel for, etc, and by the time you're ready to launch you've got a relatively small transport vehicle strapped onto an obese big fuel container.
Remember everyone who talked about putting a staging area for deep space missions (e.g. Mars) on the moon? Same idea here.
It's not easy to make work in the real world, plenty of people working on it for a while have already been listed. But it will be done, and it will make our brute force concept look like trying to move a refrigerator without a dolly.
Re:Why do the private investors forget the DETAIL (Score:2)
Did any of the proposals mention the use of a Zeppelin supported airfield, or were all of them for Jet-plane mated technologies? I realize that it's a
Its all coming together now... (Score:4, Informative)
Radiation ? (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the first few real spaceships we build will look like two small iron submarines hung from each other via long steel cables, spinning around to make an artificial gravity.
Why would you fly up to some bubble thing washed in radiation ? Unless i
Re:Radiation ? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the bigelow designs will use water-filled bladders on the inside of the wall to provide additional radiation protection. If you want to go outside low earth orbit, just add more water.
For solar storms there will be a radiation shelter with very thick water walls.
Re:Radiation ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, if the inflatable hotels were shaded by inflatable water tanks, it might just work. Or perhaps some kind of artifical magnetic field too.
Re:Radiation ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Radiation ? (Score:3, Funny)
Entrepreneurs In Space! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Entrepreneurs In Space! (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, fall the free-market theists are spouting how "nasa needs to get out of the way" -- out of the way of what? None of this would be possible *at all* if they hadnt proven it possible.
Im not saying there isnt room for people to squeeze usefull project out of more reasonable resources, but they are only doing it because
creepy name (Score:2, Funny)
Priceline? (Score:4, Funny)
1-Star Space Orbital
4-Star Deluxe
3-Star Upscale
2½-Star Moderate-Plus
2-Star Moderate
1-Star Economy
Name Your Own Price $
tax writeoff? (Score:3, Interesting)
Any accountants out there?
Would it be possible to mount some scientific equipment in it, send scientists up for free occasionally, and write a portion off on the corporate taxes?
Re:tax writeoff? (Score:3)
I am sure if there WERE an accountant out there, they would explain to you that any scheme that involves spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, just so you can diminish your tax liability by tens of thousands of dollars is mindless folly.
Businessman 1: "Yeah -- I spent three million dollars last year to send my software engineers to a planning session in orbit. We were able to save nearly $800,000 on our corporate tax filings."
Buesinessman 2: "Was it worth $2.2 million to do that?"
Busniessman
Sky high prices (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sky high prices (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sky high prices (Score:2)
(smile, it's funny!)
Re:Sky high prices (Score:2, Insightful)
The american aerospace industry is so used to fat margins and unlimited budgets that in many ways they're 'fat and lazy'. This happens when compition doesn't exist.
OT: zillion-dollar-hammer (Score:5, Informative)
Another origin of things like the $500 hammer, is almost always lineitem allocation of overhead.
Suppose NASA contracts to Missile And Rocket Systems to provide some enormous system, including among other things: A rocket engine, and a hammer. MARS subcontracts out the rocket engine and a hammer to Engines and Hammers, Inc. E&H bills MARS $1,000,005 for one rocket engine ($1,000,000) and one hammer ($5).
MARS adds their 10% overhead for managing the E&H contract, and bills NASA at $1,100,006. Now, because of a policy called Line-item allocation, the overhead has to be prorated, not over the COST of the contract lineitems, but the COUNT ... So, the $100,001 in overhead gets divided in two ... the rocket engine cost NASA $1,050,000 .. and the hammer a staggering $50,006!
Re:OT: zillion-dollar-hammer (Score:5, Informative)
Just like the $300 coffee pot was for a C-130 full of troops, the $800 toilet seat was a complete head for low pressure...
Re:OT: zillion-dollar-hammer (Score:5, Insightful)
Couldnt they have, like, used flasks ?
Actually, it was part of a $20,000 hot coffee/tea/soup dispensing system built into the planes used by the Rapid Deployment Force. When you need to send the RDF somewhere, there really isn't time for people to go find a thermos make a pot of coffee. Besides, when they wake you up in the middle of the night and say "get your gear and form up"*, you have no way of knowing if it's just a drill or if it's the real thing. Do you carry around thermos of hot coffee all day and sleep with one under your pillow all niught, just in case?
* happened to me in December 1989. Woke us up at 2am and said "get your shit ready". Four hours later we were flying to Panama.
Re:Sky high prices (Score:2)
It's a case of a single customer insisting on features that only that customer wants so that customer pays the full cost of the features. What's interesting is that the people in charge of contracts don't care what the cost is as long as their pet feature is included. To be fair, the project managers are frequently implementing requirements that
This will be great (Score:2)
Re:This will be great (Score:4, Insightful)
Early aviation history is full of deadly accidents. And people have still continued to build and fly airplanes.
If some nanny state government like the peoples republic of california will outlaw private space flight, the development will simply move somewhere else. Even if private spaceflight is outlawed in the whole US, there are other countries in the world.
Re:This will be great (Score:2)
Late aviation history continues to be risky & full of deadly accidents. Yesterday the mayor of Racine, MN died in a helicopter crash (he was the student pilot). I know there have been other crashes this week; I heard something about an aircraft & two houses in California.
If they can lower the odds of death to something less than 'guaranteed', there will be plenty of folks ready to go
Re:This will be great (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This will be great (Score:2, Insightful)
When did people become such cowards? Our ancestors would be ashamed that a few deaths shutdown exploration everywhere. God how I hate the 21st century.
Re:This will be great (Score:2)
Remember: The most dangerous parts are launch and reentry. Go with a inexpensive Soyuz style re-entry capsule, along with a relativly simple & dependable rocket for launching, and you should be just fine.*
*Risks no higher than being a race-car driving skateboarding rockclimbing base-jumper
sick building syndrome... (Score:5, Funny)
You misunderstand passports (Score:3, Informative)
It's a request from your government to other governments to please treat you nicely because you're their citizen or subject, and in particular it's a request to let you travel through their country. It usually includes a committement to accept you back if the other government wants to kick you out. Many countries have rules about checking passports when you get on internatio
I guess it's time to add (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I guess it's time to add (Score:3, Funny)
I didn't know whether to be interested or grossed out. Maybe "Pees Mulled Wine" would be better.
Reality check - we don't know how to live in space (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Reality check - we don't know how to live in sp (Score:3, Informative)
When is THIS bubble going to burst? (Score:2)
Of course, someone might be worried about profitability, too, but that's a different issue.
Inflatable? (Score:4, Funny)
Some slashdotters will feel right at home
NASA's Transhab wasn't killed for budget concerns (Score:5, Informative)
Orbit? I want Saturn hotels! (Score:2)
This is Waaayyy before it's time. (Score:5, Insightful)
SS1 reaches Mach 3 at maximum speed. Even if you could swap the rocket motor in SS1 with one which can reach orbit, neither SS1 nor it's mothership are big enough to carry it. In order to attain orbit Mach 25+ is needed and the difficulties (notably thermal protection issues) mount at the cube of the mach. Reentry heating is almost a non issue for SS1, but as the last shuttle flight showed is A MAJOR PROBLEM when returning from orbit.
I wish it was different but we'll need at least another decade & probably more before private access to space become a reality beyond the souped up sounding rockets that the X prize contestants represent.
SS1 and this hab need only ONE MORE thing (Score:3)
this is cool and all (Score:3, Insightful)
Inflatable eh? (Score:2)
Yeah I'd definitely like to be orbiting in something inflatable with all the space junk of the last 45 years and assorted meteors flying around at 160,000mph.
The space question I've never dared ask.... (Score:3, Insightful)
A guy is in space for 6 months... his testicles are still working, right? They have to have some solution, or they'd just have a bunch of nocturnal emissions on their space blankets.
Yes this is a silly question, but I'm not trying to make a joke, I am genuinely curious.
The Wife (Score:2)
Honeymooner market? (Score:5, Funny)
It sure as hell sounds more fun than going to Niagara Falls...
Re:Burt Rutan does not matter. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's kind of like the Wrights and Curtis becoming "go to" guys for travel, even though they could move maybe two people 50 miles and everyone knew that Cunard Lines and Leland Stanford's railroads could actually accomplish real transportation.
An alliance between pioneers in a field only makes sense; who's to say Rutan won't have an orbital vehicle in 10 years? Be kind of useless without a destination.
Re:Uh, right (Score:2)
Rememeber also that Rutan's trying to win the X prize. He's not trying to replicate the shuttle or the Apollo missions, so deriding his craft for what it wasn't designed to do in the first place seems overly antagonistic.
Re:Burt Rutan does not matter. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because, while what he has achieved might not be everything, nobody else has achieved more without government backing.
Re:Burt Rutan does not matter. (Score:2)
Hey calm down. (Score:2, Informative)
But you're missing the point. Yes, they still need orders of magnitude more power to reach orbit, and YES, they haven't solved any of the major problems relating to actual spaceflight. And yes, all they have to do to solve th
Re:Yes you are missing something. (Score:4, Insightful)
Three times already, actually. And what kind of bizarre logic is that? As that article pointed out, just the research for the engine alone cost more than three times SS1's current complete development cost. If the X-15 had flown once, it wouldn't have cost just $1 million.
And even admitting that logic, you'd still have to back down after the next three flights, at which point the two vehicles would be at the same cost per flight in real dollars, and adjusting for 40 years of inflation is a lot of adjustment.
Re:Burt Rutan? (Score:3, Insightful)