Genesis 1 could pave the way for space hotels by 2015

While in Thailand, and off the Internet, I missed the launch of Bigelow Aerospace, Genesis 1.
- LRK -

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http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0607/12bigelow/
Bigelow Aerospace launches its prototype space module Spaceflight Now, FL - Jul 13, 2006 ... inflatable module design for a crew habitat on the international space station. When NASA cancelled plans for the so-called TransHab module, Bigelow picked up ...

Bigelow Aerospace launches its prototype space module BY STEPHEN CLARK SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: July 12, 2006

An inflatable module called Genesis 1 arrived in space after a successful launch Wednesday aboard a converted Russian ballistic missile. The project's backers hope the mission will be the first step in realizing a plan for a futuristic commercial space station that could be fully operational within the next decade.

The Dnepr rocket with Genesis 1 was fired out of its missile silo at 1453 GMT (10:53 a.m. EDT) from a launch base at Yasny near Russia's southern border.

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Let me know if you see Genesis I.
- LRK -

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http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/

Genesis I Sightings
Discover our interactive map of Genesis I sightings. Have you seen Genesis I? Add your sighting!
http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/out_there/seen_genesis1.php

7/26/06: Images from the July 12, 2006 Dnepr launch that took Genesis I to space. http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/out_there/launch.php

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8/10/06: The Graphic Gallery is launched, featuring graphics you can use on your Website. http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/multiverse/graphics.php

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Now we have an inflatable in orbit, and we have those working on getting folks to space as tourists.

Seems like a good match. Wonder who will be the first to get married in a space hotel?


Thanks for looking up with me.


Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
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http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13828908/
Russians launch inflatable spacecraft
Genesis 1 could pave the way for space hotels by 2015

By Alan Boyle
Science editor
MSNBC
Updated: 5:07 p.m. MT July 13, 2006

Alan Boyle
Science editor

A Russian military base has launched the first prototype for what could eventually become a private-sector space station built up from inflatable modules, the company funding the project said Wednesday.

The Genesis 1 inflatable spacecraft, developed by Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace, could take a significant step toward an era of privately funded hotels, labs and even sports complexes in space.

The company's founder, real-estate magnate Robert Bigelow, has reportedly committed $500 million to the inflatable-module project, with about $75 million spent so far. In an initial statement, Bigelow said Genesis 1 was successfully launched from Russia's Dombarovsky missile base at 10:53 a.m. ET, atop a Soviet-era intercontinental ballistic missile that was converted to commercial use.

In later statements, Bigelow said his mission control center in Las Vegas was receiving data indicating that Genesis 1 was in its 342-mile-high (550-kilometer-high) target orbit, that its solar arrays were working as planned and that the craft's inflatable skin "has successfully expanded."

The module's internal temperature was 79 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius), and the GPS-based tracking system was working, he said.

Years of work
The launch represents the culmination of years of work by Bigelow and his team, using a concept that was first suggested by NASA for the international space station or Mars-bound spacecraft. NASA scrapped the idea in 2001, but Bigelow licensed the concept for commercial use.

The basic concept calls for launching soft-sided spacecraft that could be inflated once they're in orbit. The walls are made from multiple layers of graphite-fiber composite materials, tough enough to stand up to micrometeoroids and orbital debris. Such modules would be cheaper to send into space, and allow for larger pressurized volumes once they were inflated.

Genesis 1 measures about 14 feet (4 meters) in length and 4 feet (1.2
meters) in diameter, and was designed to inflate in orbit to twice that diameter. The module is equipped with 13 cameras inside and out, and could transmit views of Earth as well as items floating inside the enclosed space for years to come.

Bigelow's time line calls for testing larger and larger prototypes, with roughly two launches per year, leading up to the launch of full-scale Nautilus-class modules each enclosing about 11,650 cubic feet (330 cubic meters), or roughly the volume of a three-bedroom home.

In comparison, the international space station has cost on the order of $100 billion so far, and encloses about 15,000 cubic feet (425 cubic meters) of habitable space.

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http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/07/20/1353.aspx
Inside the spaceship factory
Posted: Thursday, July 20, 2006 11:59 PM by Alan Boyle
Categories: Space

On a 50-acre spread in North Las Vegas, near the intersection of Warp Drive and Skywalker Way, the prototypes for future space stations are being built from strips of fortified fabric, supertough inflatable skin and lattices of metal.

Today a gaggle of journalists and space entrepreneurs got a rare look inside Bigelow Aerospace's industrial-park production facility and mission control center, just a week and a day after the company's launch of its Genesis 1 orbital test module. We were treated to three and a half hours of talk and tours, led by billionaire Robert Bigelow and his top engineers.

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http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/07/13/1086.aspx
BIGELOW'S ORBITAL 'BABY'
Posted: Thursday, July 13, 2006 8:10 PM by Alan Boyle

Real-estate billionaire Robert Bigelow, the head of the world's newest orbital space program, says he thinks of his Genesis 1 inflatable module as "our baby" - and lies awake at night wondering how "she" is doing. On the day after the big launch, Bigelow chatted with me about the regulatory hoops he and his team had to jump through, the bugs and jumping beans that are aboard Genesis, and the road ahead to human orbital flight.

Just to refresh your memory, Genesis 1 is a one-third-scale prototype for what Bigelow Aerospace hopes eventually will be the building blocks for private-sector space stations: prefab modules that can be compressed down for launch, then inflated in orbit like balloons with bulletproof skins. The 14-foot-long, 4-foot-diameter spacecraft was launched Wednesday from a Russian military base atop a converted Soviet-era ICBM - and all indications so far are that the craft performed precisely as planned. (Today's mission update says the first images have been sent down from the onboard cameras.)

"This is like the day after a war," Bigelow told me over the phone today from his Las Vegas headquarters. "We have a lot of walking wounded around here, and we have some missing in action - we don't even know where they are. ... We were not prepared for this kind of success, to tell the truth."

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http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=missions&Number=544838&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0
How big will Bigelow's "Inflatable Module" business get? [link to this post] http://uplink.space.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=missions&Number=544838&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&vc=1


I was just reading the following article on Bigelow Aerospace's achievements.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/07/20/1353.aspx

I don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere before but it dawned on me just how big bigelow's module business could become! How parties would be interested in buying his modules???

I bet Virgin Galactic, Scaled Composites and others have been given added incentive to advance the plans for orbital vehicles. Just imagine by 2012, we could have a full system transporting civilians to space, staying in bigelow's modules that dwarf ISS habitation!!

I mean his inflatable modules could become the standard for any future human hab modules, in a variety of applications such as on-orbit, lunar and mars!

Hell, if he pulls of the nautilus module and everything checks out, one of his engineers highlighted it could be hooked up ISS? I wonder if NASA or the other members (RSA, ESA, JAXA etc) has given this serious thought?

If he is allowed to sell his modules to buyers outside of the US, I could see many companies, billionaires wanting to buy their modules... its real estate in space!!

Also, in that article Bigelow hinted at the fact they were gearing the plans towards lunar missions / lunar bases. I think BA could play a really siginificant role in providing human habitation modules on the Moon.

If everything goes to plan by 2012, private spaceflight will have almost caught right up with the big space agencies capabilities. Flight to space, hotels to stay at, flights around the moon with Space Adventures, wow!!

The possibilities are unlimited.

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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