What's Happening at Bigelow?

[Comga]

The models show the moon base modules draped with long tubes that look like oil spill booms. For radiation, maybe?

Basically long sand (or regolith) bags. You could do a lot more radiation shielding with a certain mass of sand bags (filled with lunar regolith) than with a certain mass of radiation shielding brought to the surface from Earth.

Didn't Bigelow himself, a few years ago, say they were getting a patent on some alternative way of massing the regolith for radiation shielding?  (Can anyone find a relevant patent application?)  He was talking about how difficult it would be to maintain moon analogs of standard earth moving equipment.  He had some way that involved less handling than straight digging.  It looks like it results with the regolith stuffed into lunar sausage casings.

[Patchouli]

The models show the moon base modules draped with long tubes that look like oil spill booms. For radiation, maybe?

Basically long sand (or regolith) bags. You could do a lot more radiation shielding with a certain mass of sand bags (filled with lunar regolith) than with a certain mass of radiation shielding brought to the surface from Earth.

Didn't Bigelow himself, a few years ago, say they were getting a patent on some alternative way of massing the regolith for radiation shielding?  (Can anyone find a relevant patent application?)  He was talking about how difficult it would be to maintain moon analogs of standard earth moving equipment.  He had some way that involved less handling than straight digging.  It looks like it results with the regolith stuffed into lunar sausage casings.

The Lunokhod rovers would be a good example of what to expect of mechanical failures on earth moving type equipment on the moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_1

[docmordrid]

I have one question about the Bigelow station(s) that has been bugging me - What method of orbital resupply will be used? By what craft?

Don't think they've chosen one yet but  Bigelow has said he wants at least two for redundancy. CST-100 has to have an early head start for crew given his association with Boeing.  Dragon has to be up there too just because it's already flying.

[Lars_J]

I'm wondering about cargo/fuel resupply, not crew transport. Basically, what will be the Progress equivalent?

[pathfinder_01]

I'm wondering about cargo/fuel resupply, not crew transport. Basically, what will be the Progress equivalent?

He has not decided.  Cargo would be easy as Dragon and Cygnus, could provide cargo. And there are older pictures showing soyuz docked to the station(I wouldn't be surprised if he included the correct port for this).

Propellant is another story as niether Dragon nor Cynus provide propellant. I suspect that if the russians are willing to launch a soyuz for cash a progress might also be possible. HTV and ATV would be off the cards due to their non commercail nature. 

His lifesupprot system generates some propellant so who knows how it will be handled.

[Ben the Space Brit]

Propellant is another story as niether Dragon nor Cynus provide propellant. I suspect that if the russians are willing to launch a soyuz for cash a progress might also be possible. HTV and ATV would be off the cards due to their non commercail nature. 

I wonder if that is necessarily as big an issue as it could be.  I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be unthinkably difficult to replace the current dry pressurised cargo container with a hydrazine tank (IIRC Alpha will use hydrazine monopropellent).  Dock it to the propulsion spine instead of the node using a pressurised adapter and then pump away.  The complex bit of Cygnus is its service/propulsion module, which would remain unchanged.

[rklaehn]

I'm wondering about cargo/fuel resupply, not crew transport. Basically, what will be the Progress equivalent?

He has not decided.  Cargo would be easy as Dragon and Cygnus, could provide cargo. And there are older pictures showing soyuz docked to the station(I wouldn't be surprised if he included the correct port for this).

Propellant is another story as niether Dragon nor Cynus provide propellant. I suspect that if the russians are willing to launch a soyuz for cash a progress might also be possible. HTV and ATV would be off the cards due to their non commercail nature. 

His lifesupprot system generates some propellant so who knows how it will be handled.

They will probably try to use the H2/O2 generated by the life support system for stationkeeping, debris avoidance maneuvers and altitude maintenance. The hydrazine monopropellant will be used only for the initial large maneuvers and docking, and retained for emergencies.

This is similar to what is done by the ISS: the russian service module zvezda has the ability to do a reboost using its thrusters and internal fuel, but that job is taken over by visiting vehicles whenever possible.

[jryodabobs]

Bigelow is in the process of winning-over Florida and their space port at Cape Canaveral as one of the few businesses actually attempting to make a non-NASA-sponsored-and-funded commercial space venture work economically. They deserve support and attention from the interested space community (that's the readers of this blog), not just sound bites from news people. See Aviation Week:
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aviationweek.com%2Faw%2Fgeneric%2Fstory_channel.jsp%3Fchannel%3Dspace%26id%3Dnews%252Fasd%252F2011%252F02%252F04%252F02.xml&h=1a111

[Lampyridae]

Also consider the impracticality of a vertical orientation on what is basically a display model; the horizontal layout doesn't require ladders/stairs/platforms to see most of it. Then again, horizontal gives you longer contiguous stowage along the core structure.

A horizontal layout also looks better psychologically. It minimises the number of up/down movements you need to make and also allows you continuous access to the central systems / support column (perhaps the single largest reason). The BA330 is not the Transhab either; the endcaps are hemispherical not toroidal, so you wind up with a lot of wasted space there too.

[Lampyridae]

The models show the moon base modules draped with long tubes that look like oil spill booms. For radiation, maybe?

Basically long sand (or regolith) bags. You could do a lot more radiation shielding with a certain mass of sand bags (filled with lunar regolith) than with a certain mass of radiation shielding brought to the surface from Earth.

Didn't Bigelow himself, a few years ago, say they were getting a patent on some alternative way of massing the regolith for radiation shielding?  (Can anyone find a relevant patent application?)  He was talking about how difficult it would be to maintain moon analogs of standard earth moving equipment.  He had some way that involved less handling than straight digging.  It looks like it results with the regolith stuffed into lunar sausage casings.

He'll have a hard time patenting that. I saw NASA guys experimenting with that several years ago, and they got the idea from desert-dwelling tribesmen...

[Lampyridae]

One thing that those scale models have impressed on me is how big the inflated modules are.  The diameter of the Sundancer and Nautilus look like they're in the 10m/33ft range, based on the size of the little EVA guy.  Suddenly, the fact that the internal equipment of the modules will be laid out horizontally is no longer so ridiculous-sounding, even taking into consideration the large central structural spine.

The BA-330 and Sundancer are about 6.5m in diameter.

The External Tank's interior is a good indicator of how big 8.3m is. The area of an average small house can be accommodated in each level on a vertical layout. The BA-2100 seems to be at least 12m in diameter, given that the endcaps are stated to be 20ft in diameter.

This is more like the Bigelow size - the S-IV at 5.5m (wider than Skylab!!!)

[Danderman]

This is more like the Bigelow size - the S-IV at 5.5m (wider than Skylab!!!)

How could the S-IV be wider than the S-IVB-based SkyLab, which, IIRC, had a diameter about 7 meters?

BTW, wouldn't the S-IV make a wonderful 2nd stage for EELV for LEO launches?

[Robotbeat]

This is more like the Bigelow size - the S-IV at 5.5m (wider than Skylab!!!)

How could the S-IV be wider than the S-IVB-based SkyLab, which, IIRC, had a diameter about 7 meters?

BTW, wouldn't the S-IV make a wonderful 2nd stage for EELV for LEO launches?

Skylab was made out of a modified S-IVB upper stage. The S-IVB had a diameter of 6.6m.

[kevin-rf]

This is more like the Bigelow size - the S-IV at 5.5m (wider than Skylab!!!)

Sigh, in my opinion the RL-10 powered S-IV was the most awesome upper stage ever. Way better than the J-2 powered version. Sigh...

[bad_astra]

The models show the moon base modules draped with long tubes that look like oil spill booms. For radiation, maybe?

Basically long sand (or regolith) bags. You could do a lot more radiation shielding with a certain mass of sand bags (filled with lunar regolith) than with a certain mass of radiation shielding brought to the surface from Earth.

Didn't Bigelow himself, a few years ago, say they were getting a patent on some alternative way of massing the regolith for radiation shielding?  (Can anyone find a relevant patent application?)  He was talking about how difficult it would be to maintain moon analogs of standard earth moving equipment.  He had some way that involved less handling than straight digging.  It looks like it results with the regolith stuffed into lunar sausage casings.

He'll have a hard time patenting that. I saw NASA guys experimenting with that several years ago, and they got the idea from desert-dwelling tribesmen...

There was talk at somepoint of looking into superadobe (a low-tech building method developed at Cal Earth that basically creates soil igloos by continuously filling a very long bag full of dirt which is compressed and held in place between layers of barbed wire). The regolith superadobe domes or barrel vaults would have used velcro instead of barbed wire, I think. Cal-Earth might have information on it still, but I don't see anything official from anywhere else. If the domes can support the weight, they can be bermed with even more regolith atop them.

[simonbp]

Sigh, in my opinion the RL-10 powered S-IV was the most awesome upper stage ever. Way better than the J-2 powered version. Sigh...

?

Saturn I Block II with S-I and S-IV: 9,000 kg to LEO
Saturn IB with S-I and S-IVB: 20,800 kg to LEO

With the same first stage, S-IVB more than doubled the performance of the Saturn I. The only aspect that S-IV has better was Isp (433s v. 421s), but it's minuscule thrust meant that it really couldn't take advantage of that. There's a reason the S-IV never launched more than placeholder payloads...

[STS-200]

Sigh, in my opinion the RL-10 powered S-IV was the most awesome upper stage ever. Way better than the J-2 powered version. Sigh...

?
Saturn I Block II with S-I and S-IV: 9,000 kg to LEO
Saturn IB with S-I and S-IVB: 20,800 kg to LEO

With the same first stage, S-IVB more than doubled the performance of the Saturn I. The only aspect that S-IV has better was Isp (433s v. 421s), but it's minuscule thrust meant that it really couldn't take advantage of that. There's a reason the S-IV never launched more than placeholder payloads...

Just a technical point:
Saturn IBs could only put about 16.5t into LEO (a rating of 37,000lbs comes to mind) - and for Apollo missions that had to include the SLA, which massed around 1750kg. They also had a lightened and stretched first stage with uprated engines (the S-Ib).

Meanwhile, back at Bigelow....

[clongton]

Sigh, in my opinion the RL-10 powered S-IV was the most awesome upper stage ever. Way better than the J-2 powered version. Sigh...

*TOTALLY* agree!!!

That's why I argued *so* hard for the 6xRL-10 JUS vs the 1xJ-2X JUS.
It is far and away a much better solution - by far!

[Lampyridae]

This is more like the Bigelow size - the S-IV at 5.5m (wider than Skylab!!!)

How could the S-IV be wider than the S-IVB-based SkyLab, which, IIRC, had a diameter about 7 meters?

BTW, wouldn't the S-IV make a wonderful 2nd stage for EELV for LEO launches?

Skylab was made out of a modified S-IVB upper stage. The S-IVB had a diameter of 6.6m.

I meant that the BA-330 (6.7m) is wider than Skylab.

[Jason1701]

First construction update in almost a month.
http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/prosper.php

Floors almost finished; lots of doors going up.