Expanding inflatable space habitat

Seems logical to use such modules wherever possible. The volume to weight ratio at least make it something worth pursuing

lmao

They already have one in space attached to the ISS and it didn't get there via internet. Even the larger future designs are small enough for current rocket payloads.

nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1804.html
nasa.gov/feature/beam-facts-figures-faqs

>...The BEAM module’s skin is made up of multiple layers of soft goods. The different layers of BEAM from inside to outside consist of the air barrier (bladder), restraint, Micro-meteoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) layers, External MLI layers and an exterior BETA cloth. The restraint provides the primary structural load bearing member of the BEAM module. BEAM also has a very robust micro-meteoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) shield. This MMOD shield is designed and tested to the low-Earth orbit MMOD environment. The shield is designed to stop potential particles from breaching into the primary structural restraint layer and the gas bladder. The probability of penetration is extremely low. In the very unlikely event of a penetration, the BEAM would slowly leak instead of bursting. It is designed in this manner to preclude any damage to the rest of ISS. Another desirable feature of the fabric skin of BEAM is its ability to better absorb noise for a quieter habitable volume than the aluminum walls of the ISS modules. The BEAM investigation runs two years. During this test period, BEAM is not used for storage and is not occupied. The module is constantly monitored for temperature, pressure, and radiation, and ISS crew periodically (four times per year) enter the module to collect data and check on its structural condition. After two years of testing, BEAM is released from ISS to burn up on reentry into the atmosphere.

So what would happen in docking events and /or moving machinery attached? all the structure will bounce or what?

The larger ones have a solid core. The one in the OP is more ridged than it looks. Also, space craft don't "bump" into each other like that with any force that matters. If they were causing that much of a bump then they'd be causing lots of other problems already.

It is probably important t consider scale when looking at those...

By which I mean, look, as an example, at the Gulf of Mexico. Looks like there are four, maybe five, bits of junk illustrated over the Gulf.

If you went to ail a boat in the Gulf, would you be too worried if somebody told you there were four other boats out there that might hit you?

>missing the fact that multi-shock shielding is the same as a bullet proof jacket

Jackets are made of flexible materials - and are more effective than plate armour.

This should really make you think,.

Also it's worth noting not all satellites are the same size, they range from something like the size of a pumpkin (cubesat) to the size of a car (GOES-R).

>Deuce bigelow space gigolo

its not the satellites in well understood orbits that you need to be concerned about.

the hundreds of thousands or more uncharted pieces of orbital debris are way is concerning.

something the size of a few grains of rice could punch a hole strait through your balloon habitat.

>balloon habitat
>literally kevlar and nextel
>thinner than your dick
>equivalent to aluminium plate as thick as your skull

Kys

>something the size of a few grains of rice could punch a hole strait through your balloon habitat.

It has the same shielding capabilities as ISS itself. ISS has been struck a few times already. The only really bad strike was to a solar panel. They also have a scratch in one of the windows and a chip out of another window. A piece of debris 1cm wide is mostly shrugged off, but damages outside instruments. 1cm to 10cm range and it will punch through the shielding of ISS crew modules. 10cm and higher and it will shatter entire ships, satellites, and modules.

So I propose to sail across the Gulf of Mexico when there are 4 boats out there, and several dozen smaller objects that will do some damage if I hit them...

At least they are all mostly going the same way -- and, if in similar orbits, at similar speeds.

actually its more like you are walking across a room with hundreds of bullets firing randomly from every direction with no way to know where they are coming from.

literally hundreds of thousands of undocumented orbital debris and like said all it takes is one the size of a grain of rice to defeat the armoring of the most advanced space craft currently in orbit.

its Russian roulette on steroids.

OK, but the room is a lot bigger than you think it is. And you do know the direction most of them are coming from, and they are mostly going the same direction you are, and you are going about the same speed as most of them. And the room is still bigger than you are now thinking of. The room is the size of Texas, let's say. So you are walking across Texas, and somewhere in Texas are scattered a hundred bullets, most but not all going the same way you are, most but not all at about the same speed you are. Do you void your bowels in terror?

>literally hundreds of thousands of undocumented orbital debris and like said all it takes is one the size of a grain of rice to defeat the armoring of the most advanced space craft currently in orbit.

Ah, that would explain why all the spaceships and satellites and stations we build keep getting destroyed... oh wait...

In a quick google search, I find seven satellites that have ever been taken out by collision. It is possible I missed a few, I am not off by a large margin. At least one of them might have been a battery explosion instead, two of them was a collision with each other -- whole satellites rather than debris, which is a different issue. With one or two others it is unclear if meteors or debris got them, which is again a different issue, though as serious a problem for a "balloon" habitat, so let's leave them in.

In that same time span. no manned spacecraft have been taken out by collision -- the closest was when Mir was rammed by a Progress during an ill conceived docking attempt, not a debris issue.

This seems to make "literally hundreds of thousands of undocumented orbital debris and ... all it takes is one the size of a grain of rice to defeat the armoring of the most advanced space craft currently in orbit" seem somewhat hysterical.

>debris with similar velocity
>meanwhile micrometeor coming at you full retrograde

I hope these keslerfaggots won't ban space programs because muh chemical and NUCLEAR space pollutions.

>two of them was a collision with each other

Can you imagine being the guy responsible for that fuck up? That's like being the moron that hit the Tree of Tenere.

>What do you fucking retards think about deuce Bigelow space gigolo?
God damnit, now I'm picturing Rob Schneider servicing a heavy black woman in space.
>Implying debris won't just bounce off with a basketball-like harmonic thump

There wasn't really anyone that fucked up. The collision was between an active Iridium communications satellite and some derelict old Russian satellite. The Russian satellite was junk and while the Iridium could have maneuvered a collision was viewed as unlikely.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision

>There wasn't really anyone that fucked up.
>could have maneuvered a collision was viewed as unlikely.
>Collides with it anyway.

That is a legit human fuckup.

It's just a way to reduce volume on launch and fit habitats into smaller fairings. Launch vehicles with large fairings, like New Glenn and ITS, will make it obsolete.

>he wants to charge extortion prices for his habitats
The market for Bigelow habitats, assuming no competition, is one to three units.

There's competition.

>all it takes is one the size of a grain of rice to defeat the armoring of the most advanced space craft currently in orbit.
No, it needs to be more than that.

The kinetic energy of small objects goes up ridiculously with orbital speeds, but the momentum is just linear with the speed. High kinetic energy, low momentum means a surface explosion rather than deep penetration. Stuff the size of a grain of rice will tend to make pits or chips rather than holes.

Stop watching interstellar, satellites typically orbit in the same direction according to space law. Also space is huge.

The 2017 Smash Hit!

>Space law

Like laws of physics?

It is cheaper in terms of delta vee to launch to the east, that's all.

>satellites typically orbit in the same direction
For GEO, sure. For LEO, and especially polar orbits? No. They're crossing all over the place and coming at each other head-on.

>i have a pickup truck so i can take my tent to the campsite fully erected

Do you understand how stupid that is?

>Launch vehicles with large fairings, like New Glenn and ITS, will make it obsolete.

ITS is a meme and regardless it would just mean bigger modules. For example, it'd be possible to have an inflatable hangar in orbit to act as a "dry dock" equivalent for orbiting spacecraft.

looks comfy.

Rigid modules will be better
They'll get sent up unassembled then put together in orbit

I found waldo

>startrooper

why are so many companies literally re+ddit these days?

What kind of spin would that induce if it were penetrated?

As much as any other module?

>look what santa brought

>you're mom's dildo!

>typical millennial response

You're mom's gigantic vagine has nothing to do with anyone else being a 'millennial'.

Sorry if I hit a nerve, kid.

>science fact?
iz fact you microcephalic twit
Bigelow has had test modules up for over a decade and they've performed flawlessly.
>Genesis I is an experimental space habitat designed and built by the private American firm Bigelow Aerospace and launched in 2006.
>The spacecraft remains in orbit and is operational, demonstrating the long-term viability of expandable habitat technology in low-Earth orbit.

>Genesis II is the second experimental space habitat designed and built by the private American firm Bigelow Aerospace, launched in 2007
>In February 2011, Bigelow reported that the vehicle had "performed flawlessly in terms of pressure maintenance and thermal control-environmental containment." Although the design life of the spacecraft avionics was only six months, the avionics systems worked flawlessly for over two and a half years before failure.

Except those that are in highly elliptical trajectories.

This isn't like a tent. The B330 is 20 tons with half-meter-thick walls and will launch with little or no room for supplies and furnishings. You need additional launches to fill it with stuff.

When you launch a rigid module with mass to spare, you can load it up with supplies and equipment.

The motivation for inflatable modules is that the current fairing sizes are inadequate, not that bigger is better without limit.

Anyway, when we want to go really big, we'll do in-space construction rather than something cheesy like inflatable modules.

>>Genesis I is an experimental space habitat designed and built by the private American firm Bigelow Aerospace and launched in 2006.
>>Genesis II is the second experimental space habitat designed and built by the private American firm Bigelow Aerospace, launched in 2007
>The third planned Bigelow launch, Sundancer, was to be equipped with full life support systems, attitude control, orbital maneuvering systems... Unlike previous Bigelow craft, it was planned to have three observation windows... In July 2011, Bigelow announced that they will cease development on the Sundancer
>BEAM is a temporary broom-closet for ISS that launched in 2016 and will be discarded in 2018.
>it is now 2017

>"Our motto at Bigelow Aerospace is 'fly early and often'."
They flew early, but now they've gone ten years without launching an independent spacecraft or something more impressive than their last one, and they've still never put anything up with life support or windows. Now rather than a fail-fast "early and often" strategy that would have had a complete station up in orbit for years before any astronaut risked his life in it, and time to fix problems in another generation if there were problems in the first, they're counting on everything to go perfectly with the first try.

Bigelow was making good progress at first, but now they're firmly in meme territory.

>Bigelow was making good progress at first, but now they're firmly in meme territory.

I think I'd rather trust people with literal rocket science degrees than the opinion of a random user online. I know that's a logical fallacy and this is an ad hominem, but I think you are an idiot.

>Jackets are made of flexible materials - and are more effective than plate armour.

Kevlar is not more effective than ceramic plates.

>I'd rather trust people with literal rocket science degrees
So did you believe it when most of these people said SpaceX would fail, and the space shuttle would save money? Or do you mean you believed it when the Roton people said a space helicopter was totally the answer to everything?

The "people with literal rocket science degrees" disagree constantly about which technologies and businesses are going to succeed. You have to pay attention for yourself and apply your own judgement.

Bigelow's not doing well. They didn't anticipate the commercial crew delays or SpaceX building something like ITS. Their plans have crumbled.

So that's why the Nautilus should be done by the end of this year and launched in 2020? They aren't even using SpaceX.

>Nautilus should be done by the end of this year and launched in 2020
Different stories from different times.

Their first module capable of hosting crew should have been launched by 2010 in 2007, by 2017 in 2014, and by 2020 in 2016. It's not getting closer as time passes. They were supposed to be ready to fly as soon as there was a space capsule available to ferry crew, which should be early next year, but now they're looking at launching in 2020 or later.

B330, a 20-ton space station with maneuvering, air locks, life support, and windows, is far beyond their previous experience of 1.4 ton do-nothing space balloons. If they were serious about being ready when crew transportation was available, they'd have launched it already.

They've already chartered an Atlas V for it.

They'd chartered a Falcon 9 for Sundancer. That didn't stop it from not flying.

That's because B330 is its successor. Do you not follow this stuff or are you just being contrarian?

It's dumb for them to build habitats around existing launch vehicle limitations, when there is never going to be serious space tourism with existing launch vehicles anyways

I'm saying that booking a rocket for a payload is not a guarantee that the payload will fly. What's to stop the Ba330 from being cancelled in favor of a new design and another several years delay?

There is nothing wrong with inflatable modules, however its not like they offer some big advantage over tin cans either.

The main reason why Bigelow is great is because it is private space company and as such has the potential to do the same for space station costs as SpaceX for launch costs.

Also Bigelow is not a starry eyed idealist and so his long term goal is a base on the Moon, not Mars. Which is actually realistic in our lifetimes.

>there is never going to be serious space tourism with existing launch vehicles anyways
Bigelow wasn't really aiming for "serious space tourism". They were preparing to support small manned space programs which each have in the neighborhood of a hundred million dollars to spend. Like say India or Israel or UAE or Google or Disney wants to have its astronauts in space: they give money to Bigelow and get a ride on CST-100 and a room at the space station for a couple of months.

For fuck sake find a way to make artificial gravity already.

>has the potential to do the same for space station costs as SpaceX for launch costs.
...except that space station costs are largely dependent on launch costs, and whoever can make space capsules won't have trouble making their own space stations.

There are reasons why SpaceX was willing to have Bigelow as a customer, but not interested in them as a partner.

>yeah, hence use of "mostly." We can change that to "largely" if it makes you happier.

Try spinning. That's a good trick!

>however its not like they offer some big advantage over tin cans either.

More room in space for less cargo space needed in the fairing. There are other advantages too. They are lighter for what the shielding can do and hold their temperature better.

More proof that people only see what they are looking for. lol