Bigelow Aerospace, A new Genesis in space Options

[ljk4-1]

To quote:

On June 16, he'll use a Russian Dnepr rocket to launch a 1/3-scale Genesis model of his planned commercial orbital space station. That much has been public for a while. What I didn't learn until just now is what will be on that module.

Freefloating inside will be 1,000 photocards and small personal objects contributed by Bigelow employees. If all goes well, those items will be continuously blown throughout the pressurized module in a kind of space collage. Six onboard cameras will stream video to Bigelow's new website, which will launch tomorrow or Friday. Seven external cameras will provide views of the Earth from space and the outside of the module.

If that doesn't get even the most disinterested member of the public at least intrigued about the possibilities of space travel, I don't know what will.

But it gets better. Subject to a successful launch of the first module, Bigelow will launch a second Genesis module in September, and that one will contain photos and other small items contributed by anyone who cares to pony up $295.

Full article here:

http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2006/05/bi...s-to-orbit.html

[chris]

Given that its an unmanned flight, the idea of sending up something like one of these on behalf of us all has some appeal

Chris

[AndyWard]

Given that its an unmanned flight, the idea of sending up something like one of these on behalf of us all has some appeal

And since it's an inflatable module, the button pin has a small chance of making things really exciting... :-)

Presumably these things are designed to be robust to small holes.

Andy

[Bob Shaw]

And since it's an inflatable module, the button pin has a small chance of making things really exciting... :-)

Presumably these things are designed to be robust to small holes.

Andy

Andy:

All joking aside, the TransHab technology is in many ways *more* resilient than 'traditional' metal spacecraft pressure vessels - and in any case, both are actually inflated structures. The benefits of the TransHab/Genesis way of doing things are actually numerous - it's very, very attractive as a way to build decent-sized habitable spaces.

Bob Shaw