Author Topic: What's Happening at Bigelow?  (Read 421826 times)

Offline Jorge

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #100 on: 09/10/2009 12:57 am »
New Space all the way around for NASA!

NASA considers ISS Bigelow module

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/09/09/332086/nasa-considers-iss-bigelow-module.html

However, internal NASA documents passed to Flightglobal show the US space agency is now interested in attaching a Bigelow module, but neither the company or NASA were available for comment.

More through the link

Lousy article. My main beef is with the second and third paragraphs:

Quote from: Rob Coppinger
In 1997 the US space agency examined the possible attachment of its Transhab inflatable module to the ISS, but abandoned the technology project. Transhab would have been used for crew quarters.

Bigelow took the NASA Transhab technology and developed it for its own orbital complex concept and launched two technology demonstrators, Genesis I and II, which were successfully launched using Russian rockets in 2006 and 2007.

I would have written it this way:

Quote from: Jorge
In 1997 the US space agency examined the possible attachment of its Transhab inflatable module to the ISS, but an act of Congress forced them to abandon the technology project. Transhab would have been used for crew quarters.

NASA licensed the Transhab technology to Bigelow, which developed it for its own orbital complex concept and launched two technology demonstrators, Genesis I and II, which were successfully launched using Russian rockets in 2006 and 2007.

Much more honest, and it really wouldn't have taken more room in the article.
« Last Edit: 09/10/2009 12:58 am by Jorge »
JRF

Offline yinzer

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #101 on: 09/10/2009 01:35 am »
I would have written it this way:
Quote from: Jorge
In 1997 the US space agency examined the possible attachment of its Transhab inflatable module to the ISS, but an act of Congress forced them to abandon the technology project. Transhab would have been used for crew quarters.

NASA licensed the Transhab technology to Bigelow, which developed it for its own orbital complex concept and launched two technology demonstrators, Genesis I and II, which were successfully launched using Russian rockets in 2006 and 2007.

Much more honest, and it really wouldn't have taken more room in the article.

You don't think it's worth mentioning the poor state of the ISS program at the time?  From a public statement at the time:
Quote
Transhab [...] has come under fire within the House of Representatives. Concerns were raised by legislators that the R & D effort would emerge from the ISS office as a construction project that would replace the current station habitation module. The fear was that with the replacement would come a dramatic increase in the cost of the International Space Station and delays in the contemplated construction schedule.

That sounds like a pretty justified fear to me.  Indeed, the hab module got cancelled the next year, victim to general ISS cost overruns.
« Last Edit: 09/10/2009 01:51 am by yinzer »
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Offline Jorge

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #102 on: 09/10/2009 01:46 am »
I would have written it this way:
Quote from: Jorge
In 1997 the US space agency examined the possible attachment of its Transhab inflatable module to the ISS, but an act of Congress forced them to abandon the technology project. Transhab would have been used for crew quarters.

NASA licensed the Transhab technology to Bigelow, which developed it for its own orbital complex concept and launched two technology demonstrators, Genesis I and II, which were successfully launched using Russian rockets in 2006 and 2007.

Much more honest, and it really wouldn't have taken more room in the article.

You don't think it's worth mentioning the poor state of the ISS program at the time?  From a public statement at the time:
Quote
Transhab [...] has come under fire within the House of Representatives. Concerns were raised by legislators that the R & D effort would emerge from the ISS office as a construction project that would replace the current station habitation module. The fear was that with the replacement would come a dramatic increase in the cost of the International Space Station and delays in the contemplated construction schedule.

That sounds like a pretty justified fear to me.

Whether it was justified or not is beside my point. My point is that cancellation wasn't NASA's choice. That's aimed at the bleating hordes excoriating NASA for "abandoning" Transhab.
JRF

Offline yinzer

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #103 on: 09/10/2009 02:00 am »
That sounds like a pretty justified fear to me.

Whether it was justified or not is beside my point. My point is that cancellation wasn't NASA's choice. That's aimed at the bleating hordes excoriating NASA for "abandoning" Transhab.

Sure.  NASA didn't abandon TransHab because they were shortsighted, NASA didn't have the money to develop it because the baseline ISS was eating up all the available budget and then some.
California 2008 - taking rights from people and giving rights to chickens.

Offline jabe

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #104 on: 09/10/2009 02:08 am »
I came across a posting on Nasawatch that seems to suggest the suggestion was brought up by Bigelow.  I'm assuming they just spelled his name wrong in the article. :)
Quote
Mr. Suffredini noted that Biggalow has approached NASA about docking a module to ISS, which he would like to try to accommodate.

jb

Offline SpacexULA

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #105 on: 09/10/2009 02:27 am »
I think an healthy assumption would be that NASA would want a BA330 not a Sundancer.

Given by all reports Bigelow is in the process of Building the Sundancer unit and Truss at this time, with 2 BA-330 to attach to the station later, what is the priority for Bigelow.

A.  Build a BA-330 to their own internal specs for their private station

B.  Build a BA-330 to NASA spec for ISS, use NASA funds to help accelerate the R&D and production of BA.

Considering Bigelow was obviously funding Orion Lite for a long while before any of us admitted to knowing about it, for all we know they could have skipped Sundancer a year ago and be working on the BA-330 for ISS right now. 

Wow, what a week for space news this one has been.
No Bucks no Buck Rogers, but at least Flexible path gets you Twiki.

Offline iamlucky13

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #106 on: 09/10/2009 06:51 am »
The article about Orion-Lite went open on SPACE.COM, in case you wanted to know what's going on with those 760 million that apparently nobody wanted:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/090814-orion-lite.html

It's a little confusing, but apparently Bigelow is building Orion-Lite themselves with LM's "help" (whatever that means) instead of asking some other company (like LM) to build it for them. That's where 760 millions are going to go (at least in part).

-- Pete

I missed this when it came up last month, but given the news that's been developing since then, I'm starting to wonder if Lockheed Martin is positioning themselves for a possible COTS-D bid.

Offline infocat13

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #107 on: 09/10/2009 08:17 pm »
The article about Orion-Lite went open on SPACE.COM, in case you wanted to know what's going on with those 760 million that apparently nobody wanted:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/090814-orion-lite.html

It's a little confusing, but apparently Bigelow is building Orion-Lite themselves with LM's "help" (whatever that means) instead of asking some other company (like LM) to build it for them. That's where 760 millions are going to go (at least in part).

-- Pete

I missed this when it came up last month, but given the news that's been developing since then, I'm starting to wonder if Lockheed Martin is positioning themselves for a possible COTS-D bid.

My policy wonk suspicion is that LM is a union shop along with Davis Bacon and service contract act prevailing wages. Bigalow is not at present.IF Bigalow sells a station to the government then Davis Bacon may come into play even if it is not a union shop.If Bigelow provides "services" to the government then contract service act comes into play.Would Orion lite be a service to the government?
there is several ways to proceed if Bigalow becomes a government contractor. Form two Bigalows one is in private business the other is the government contractor. This is very unwieldy as to how do you divide up the workforce?
The second option is what Bigalow is doing now it hires qualified engineers from existing contractors and is already paying prevailing wages but it will only buy components from LM and assembly will be in house so as not to pay what LM pays its workers.
I am a member of the side mount amazing people universe however I can get excited over the EELV exploration architecture amazing people universe.Anything else is budgetary hog wash
flexible path/HERRO

Offline iamlucky13

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #108 on: 09/14/2009 07:08 pm »
The article about Orion-Lite went open on SPACE.COM, in case you wanted to know what's going on with those 760 million that apparently nobody wanted:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/090814-orion-lite.html

It's a little confusing, but apparently Bigelow is building Orion-Lite themselves with LM's "help" (whatever that means) instead of asking some other company (like LM) to build it for them. That's where 760 millions are going to go (at least in part).

-- Pete

I missed this when it came up last month, but given the news that's been developing since then, I'm starting to wonder if Lockheed Martin is positioning themselves for a possible COTS-D bid.

And Chris'es latest article also fits along the same lines...not necessarily via COTS, but they would certainly be well positioned to bid for a COTS-D contract if they were already working on it for an exploration program.

Offline corrodedNut

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #109 on: 01/12/2010 05:39 pm »
Here's a  Space News article/interview with Robert Bigelow, via Clark Lindsey:

http://spacenews.com/profiles/100111-robert-bigelow.html

"I also have a design for a “Big Bertha” spacecraft for NASA’s Ares 5. We can create a module that has twice the volume of the entire international space station"

Good stuff...

Offline robertross

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #110 on: 01/12/2010 07:18 pm »
Here's a  Space News article/interview with Robert Bigelow, via Clark Lindsey:

http://spacenews.com/profiles/100111-robert-bigelow.html

"I also have a design for a “Big Bertha” spacecraft for NASA’s Ares 5. We can create a module that has twice the volume of the entire international space station"

Good stuff...

Nice.

I also like (which I already knew):

"Has NASA considered use of your expandable modules for utilization on the international space station?

"They contacted us a few months ago. We worked on something for them, gave them cost figures and the architecture for what they wanted. They were supposedly impressed and kind of surprised with how relatively inexpensive things were going to be. We don’t know what their intent is."
« Last Edit: 01/12/2010 07:18 pm by robertross »

Offline docmordrid

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #111 on: 01/12/2010 07:32 pm »
A 2100 cu/m hab?  Jeezzzz....stick a few of those together and you have quite the facility.
DM

Offline 8900

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #112 on: 01/13/2010 03:31 am »
2014/2015
seems quite a significant delay when compared with previous aggressive schedule

Offline Lambda-4

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #113 on: 01/13/2010 09:40 am »
2014/2015
seems quite a significant delay when compared with previous aggressive schedule

Expect more delays. There are just too many unknowns for having any firm schedule, including funding, crew transport, demand, technical possibility etc.

Offline cgrunska

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #114 on: 01/16/2010 02:16 pm »
finally some news! good to hear they are going back to bidding on the manufacturing building

just a few more years to really see what happens, for a variety of projects

Offline jongoff

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #115 on: 01/16/2010 06:50 pm »
2014/2015
seems quite a significant delay when compared with previous aggressive schedule

Expect more delays. There are just too many unknowns for having any firm schedule, including funding, crew transport, demand, technical possibility etc.

I think the middle two are the biggest unknowns.   Bigelow's business case lives or dies on having multiple domestic commercial crew launch options.  Until there's something serious from more than one supplier, my guess is that Bigelow will take it nice and slow.  The other big open question is how big will the market really be, and is that good enough to make the concept profitable?  I really think the domestic crew launch is the key, because I think he's going to have a hard time "sovereign customers" to take him seriously until he has a believable plan for how he's actually going to access his station.

~Jon

Online mmeijeri

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #116 on: 01/16/2010 07:39 pm »
I really think the domestic crew launch is the key, because I think he's going to have a hard time "sovereign customers" to take him seriously until he has a believable plan for how he's actually going to access his station.

US crew launch is certainly very important, but ESA already appears to be taking him seriously as it is. Some of the architecture documents that came out of ESA in the past two years explicitly refer to cooperation with Bigelow in the event the ISS is scuttled in 2015.
« Last Edit: 01/16/2010 07:42 pm by mmeijeri »
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Offline daver

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #117 on: 01/20/2010 12:35 pm »
Nice Bigelow article on Space.com

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/private-space-stations-bigelow-100120.html

Sounds like he is shooting for the moon.

"Beyond low-Earth orbit, Bigelow Aerospace also has its sights on expandable space habitats for Lagrangian Point L1, partway between the sun and the Earth."

""If we can deploy and gang together modules in low-Earth orbit, you can do it in L1...and you are 85 percent of the way to the moon,"" Bigelow said. In fact, one scenario Bigelow Aerospace has already blueprinted is the soft landing of a trio of attached BA-330 modules — including astronauts — on the moon."

Offline Danderman

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #118 on: 01/20/2010 01:21 pm »
Sounds like the company is less focused on near term development, and more on the long term stuff.

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: What's Happening at Bigelow?
« Reply #119 on: 01/20/2010 01:50 pm »

"Beyond low-Earth orbit, Bigelow Aerospace also has its sights on expandable space habitats for Lagrangian Point L1, partway between the sun and the Earth."
"

Building a space station at L1, now that is a dream.
However if you do not have a dream you cannot have a dream come true.

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