Hotel hotshot and aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow announced his plans for a Budget motel, er I mean, inflatable base on the moon. Meant for 18 astronauts to call temporary home, the base would be assembled in space before piloted to the lunar surface. A solar array field would power the habitat, which Bigelow suggests could have a minimum volume of 2,100 cubic meters, twice that of the International Space Station. The company is also designing habitats for the International Space Station and also Lagrangian Point L1, halfway between Earth and the moon, as a way station for trips to Mars. From Space.com:
"I see a huge sea change in using expandable systems," Bigelow told SPACE.com in an exclusive interview. "I feel this architecture is fundamentally safer, less expensive, and can save an awful lot of time…."
Two prototype space modules built by Bigelow Aerospace are now circuiting the Earth. Lofted in July 2006 and in June 2007, respectively, the company's Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 expandable modules served as forerunners to ever-larger and human-rated space structures…
(The company's Director of Washington, D.C. Operations & Business Growth Michael) Gold said that Bigelow Aerospace has been aggressively establishing an international consortium of what the group terms as "sovereign clients" — along with hammering out the financial and legal structure, he said, for such partnerships to blossom, first in low Earth orbit and then beyond.
"We need to make low-Earth orbit work first before we go beyond . . . but I believe we will," Gold told SPACE.com. "Once we've established a robust infrastructure in Earth orbit, created the economies of scale necessary to produce facilities in low Earth orbit . . . at that point, we've really enabled ourselves to look at a variety of options."
Bigelow Aerospace has taken a hard look at how their habitats could function on the lunar surface, Gold said. "We believe our expandable habitat technology will be a critical piece of building a presence on the moon," he added.
"Private Moon Bases a Hot Idea for Space Pioneer" (Thanks, Jacques Vallee!)
