Bigelow Aerospace Update Thread (2)

[QuantumG]

My uninformed guess is that they are some what down the road on manufacuring a flight fidelity Sundancer.

-NASA gets a beyond LEO mission with "man rated" hardware.
-NASA gets flight data for a possible BEO tool
-Bigelow gets funds it desperately needs for hardware already somewhat completed
-Bigelow gets gravitas of a NASA mission
-Bigelow gets to prove out changes in design since the near decade at the time of this launch since Genesis II.

Seems like a win all the way around

NASA gets control over Bigelow. Bigelow gets a taste of addictive government funding. A little more hope for an independent space industry dies..

[RocketmanUS]

My uninformed guess is that they are some what down the road on manufacuring a flight fidelity Sundancer.

-NASA gets a beyond LEO mission with "man rated" hardware.
-NASA gets flight data for a possible BEO tool
-Bigelow gets funds it desperately needs for hardware already somewhat completed
-Bigelow gets gravitas of a NASA mission
-Bigelow gets to prove out changes in design since the near decade at the time of this launch since Genesis II.

Seems like a win all the way around

NASA gets control over Bigelow. Bigelow gets a taste of addictive government funding. A little more hope for an independent space industry dies..

Wouldn't NASA just be a customer buying a Sundancer module for the EML1/2 station?

[QuantumG]

Wouldn't NASA just be a customer buying a Sundancer module for the EML1/2 station?

Isn't NASA just a customer buying rides from the CCDev providers?

[clongton]

Wouldn't NASA just be a customer buying a Sundancer module for the EML1/2 station?

Isn't NASA just a customer buying rides from the CCDev providers?

NASA money is the kiss of death to independence for a commercial company because she wants much more than purchasing a service. She wants to control the service provider. Addiction to the government teat is its own worst lifestyle and withdrawal is extremely painful if not fatal.

[RocketmanUS]

Wouldn't NASA just be a customer buying a Sundancer module for the EML1/2 station?

Isn't NASA just a customer buying rides from the CCDev providers?

NASA money is the kiss of death to independence for a commercial company because she wants much more than purchasing a service. She wants to control the service provider. Addiction to the government teat is its own worst lifestyle and withdrawal is extremely painful if not fatal.

Well said.

So a company should just put up on the show room their product and sell it. NASA should then by the product and us it ( just as some one would a car or semi ) and stay out of the companies day to day business.

[SpacexULA]

Seems like a win all the way around

NASA gets control over Bigelow. Bigelow gets a taste of addictive government funding. A little more hope for an independent space industry dies..

You seem to be expecting a level of philosophical purity that Bigelow has never implied they have, and no commercial launcher to date has shown any interest in.

Bigelow bought Transhab from NASA, and used NASA resources to help work on their modules.

Bigelow has said from day 1 that their primary target customers are government space programs around the world, not tourists.

Every commercial space company, Armadillo, Masten, Virgin, Bigelow, SpaceX, Orbital, Boeing, Xcor etc etc all are looking for government customers, and most have found them. 

At the present time the largest customers for most of these companies are the vanity of their founding investors, and government contracts.

Don't deny babies the teat.

[SpacexULA]

Well said.

So a company should just put up on the show room their product and sell it. NASA should then by the product and us it ( just as some one would a car or semi ) and stay out of the companies day to day business.

That might be how mass produced products go, but for low run/high cost products typically the customer gets a say so in how a product is built.

Office buildings, bridges, mainframes, pipelines, etc etc are all close partnerships between the producer and the customer.

If you’re paying a company 10s of Millions of dollars for something, you get input into what is being produced.  Government customers should be shown the same level of respect as corporate customers are given. 

If Virgin buys a Bigelow module, do you think they will get to have input on the model they receive, or are they going to be told to shut their trap, write the check, and you will get what we give you for your $100 Million dollars?

[clongton]

If Virgin buys a Bigelow module, do you think they will get to have input on the model they receive, or are they going to be told to shut their trap, write the check, and you will get what we give you for your $100 Million dollars?

Of course they will get a say - in the same way that Southwest Airlines tells Boeing how they want their airliners outfitted. What they don't get a say in is the structure of the company where NASA inserts a level of management to oversee how Bigelow implements NASA internal reporting requirements. And that is exactly what NASA will do, imposing massive paperwork and reporting requirements and a new level of management to oversee and collect all that paper.

[SpacexULA]

Of course they will get a say - in the same way that Southwest Airlines tells Boeing how they want their airliners outfitted. What they don't get a say in is the structure of the company where NASA inserts a level of management to oversee how Bigelow implements NASA internal reporting requirements. And that is exactly what NASA will do, imposing massive paperwork and reporting requirements and a new level of management to oversee and collect all that paper.

I think the better analogy is the pipe in a Gas pipeline.  A company like TransCanada will have company inspectors at the plant inspecting every step of the pipe production, and final inspection before delivery.  They have paperwork requirements at every step.  The company dictates every aspect of assembly of the pipe.

And that's just a metal sheet rolled into a pipe, not a rocket.

NASA has a right to be careful, they are effectively self insured, there needs to be a balance struck between the needs of the two parties, but of course that is obvious.

Hopefully NASA and the commercial interests can find a balance both can be happy with.

[RocketmanUS]

Of course they will get a say - in the same way that Southwest Airlines tells Boeing how they want their airliners outfitted. What they don't get a say in is the structure of the company where NASA inserts a level of management to oversee how Bigelow implements NASA internal reporting requirements. And that is exactly what NASA will do, imposing massive paperwork and reporting requirements and a new level of management to oversee and collect all that paper.

I think the better analogy is the pipe in a Gas pipeline.  A company like TransCanada will have company inspectors at the plant inspecting every step of the pipe production, and final inspection before delivery.  They have paperwork requirements at every step.  The company dictates every aspect of assembly of the pipe.

And that's just a metal sheet rolled into a pipe, not a rocket.

NASA has a right to be careful, they are effectively self insured, there needs to be a balance struck between the needs of the two parties, but of course that is obvious.

Hopefully NASA and the commercial interests can find a balance both can be happy with.

Do you go to a restaurant and what the chef from A to B. Food preparation is important too, but you don't what how the food is handled, you see it when it is delivered to your table. If NASA were to over see a Sundancer module it would take longer to build and cost far more, unnecessarily. The module can be inspected prier to payment.

If NASA gets to close to the commercial company then it is no longer commercial at all. NASA should either make them their selves or have someone else make it , but not together.

So let get back to the possible future of a Sundancer in LEO and or EML1/2.

Sundancer, for it's size and specs what docking systems can it handle?

[pathfinder_01]

If NASA gets to close to the commercial company then it is no longer commercial at all. NASA should either make them their selves or have someone else make it , but not together.

Not really. Lots of companies have very strict requirements and do inspections at points before delivery. In the case of a pipeline a ruptured pipeline can kill and injure people, destroy millions of dollars worth of property and cause an environmental disaster.  When it becomes non commercial is when NASA designs everything and tells Bigleow to build this instead of them choosing options that Bigloew has.

So let get back to the possible future of a Sundancer in LEO and or EML1/2.

Sundancer, for it's size and specs what docking systems can it handle?

Anyway there are lots of ways to get a sundancer to EML1 or LEO.  A Flacon 9 can push it to LEO so that is pretty light. I am not sure about Delta Heavy(I think it can push that much toward EML, but not sure if there is enough propellant to stop and go into a Halo orbit). I have read of plans that push a 16MT station to EML using two Delta IV heavy launches.

NASA is going with the international docking standard of which the NASA docking standard is a part of so that would likely be the docking method chosen. If however you need to do some assembly at the ISS then the CBM might be preferred over NDS(i.e. a NDS adaptor installed later or in a differnt location). Sundancer was built to have a Soyuz docking port, but if NASA is the customer then I don't see much point in having one(perhaps leaving an option to add latter).

As for life-support that would be an interesting question. Bigelow designed a different life-support system than the ISS. It would support 3 long term and 6 short term. NASA on the other hand might (with good reason) want to use ISS life-support systems onboard.  There are also some planned upgrades to the ISS life-support systems that NASA might want to install too.

[RocketmanUS]

{snip}
As for life-support that would be an interesting question. Bigelow designed a different life-support system than the ISS. It would support 3 long term and 6 short term. NASA on the other hand might (with good reason) want to use ISS life-support systems onboard.  There are also some planned upgrades to the ISS life-support systems that NASA might want to install too.

For the life support would it be possible to add an alternative system in for testing out a new system and shut the main one down while testing ( except the radiators )?
( this for the Sundancer not the ISS )

[pathfinder_01]

{snip}
As for life-support that would be an interesting question. Bigelow designed a different life-support system than the ISS. It would support 3 long term and 6 short term. NASA on the other hand might (with good reason) want to use ISS life-support systems onboard.  There are also some planned upgrades to the ISS life-support systems that NASA might want to install too.

For the life support would it be possible to add an alternative system in for testing out a new system and shut the main one down while testing ( except the radiators )?
( this for the Sundancer not the ISS )

Don't know enough about that. I do know that when NASA wanted to add and inflatable to the ISS(Which sadly was not funded) they planned to have a differnt life support system aboard and have the ISS and this area seperated by an airlock.

[Robotbeat]

Of course they will get a say - in the same way that Southwest Airlines tells Boeing how they want their airliners outfitted. What they don't get a say in is the structure of the company where NASA inserts a level of management to oversee how Bigelow implements NASA internal reporting requirements. And that is exactly what NASA will do, imposing massive paperwork and reporting requirements and a new level of management to oversee and collect all that paper.

I think the better analogy is the pipe in a Gas pipeline.  A company like TransCanada will have company inspectors at the plant inspecting every step of the pipe production, and final inspection before delivery.  They have paperwork requirements at every step.  The company dictates every aspect of assembly of the pipe.

And that's just a metal sheet rolled into a pipe, not a rocket.

NASA has a right to be careful, they are effectively self insured, there needs to be a balance struck between the needs of the two parties, but of course that is obvious.

Hopefully NASA and the commercial interests can find a balance both can be happy with.

+1

(Even though it doesn't meet the standard of ideological purity...  )

[Orbital Debris]

Seems like a win all the way around

NASA gets control over Bigelow. Bigelow gets a taste of addictive government funding. A little more hope for an independent space industry dies..

You seem to be expecting a level of philosophical purity that Bigelow has never implied they have, and no commercial launcher to date has shown any interest in.

Bigelow bought Transhab from NASA, and used NASA resources to help work on their modules.

Bigelow has said from day 1 that their primary target customers are government space programs around the world, not tourists.

I would beg to differ, I've heard enough propaganda over the last seven years.  Bigelow's focus for prospective customer has gone from private to corporate to sovereign nations to NASA. Last October he decided to suggest that NASA should get more money, so they can spend it like he thinks they should. 

[Orbital Debris]

My uninformed guess is that they are some what down the road on manufacuring a flight fidelity Sundancer.

-NASA gets a beyond LEO mission with "man rated" hardware.
-NASA gets flight data for a possible BEO tool
-Bigelow gets funds it desperately needs for hardware already somewhat completed
-Bigelow gets gravitas of a NASA mission
-Bigelow gets to prove out changes in design since the near decade at the time of this launch since Genesis II.

Seems like a win all the way around

NASA gets control over Bigelow. Bigelow gets a taste of addictive government funding. A little more hope for an independent space industry dies..

I wouldn't worry about NASA getting control of Bigelow.  I agree with SpaceXULA's vanity comment above.  Bigelow Aerospace only has one internal customer, and he is not giving up control to anyone else.

[A_M_Swallow]

I wouldn't worry about NASA getting control of Bigelow.  I agree with SpaceXULA's vanity comment below.  Bigelow Aerospace only has one internal customer, and he is not giving up control to anyone else.

Things should work out providing he chooses to supply what NASA wants - a self catering motel in space.  At these prices it had better be fully equipped.  Someone else is paying the bill and the astronauts are there to work not play, so 3 star accommodation rather than 5 star luxury.

[Jim]

If Virgin buys a Bigelow module, do you think they will get to have input on the model they receive, or are they going to be told to shut their trap, write the check, and you will get what we give you for your $100 Million dollars?

Of course they will get a say - in the same way that Southwest Airlines tells Boeing how they want their airliners outfitted. What they don't get a say in is the structure of the company where NASA inserts a level of management to oversee how Bigelow implements NASA internal reporting requirements. And that is exactly what NASA will do, imposing massive paperwork and reporting requirements and a new level of management to oversee and collect all that paper.

Not with commercial procurement.  NASA just gets the companies internal paperwork and does not get its own specialized paperwork.

[ChefPat]

If Virgin buys a Bigelow module, do you think they will get to have input on the model they receive, or are they going to be told to shut their trap, write the check, and you will get what we give you for your $100 Million dollars?

Of course they will get a say - in the same way that Southwest Airlines tells Boeing how they want their airliners outfitted. What they don't get a say in is the structure of the company where NASA inserts a level of management to oversee how Bigelow implements NASA internal reporting requirements. And that is exactly what NASA will do, imposing massive paperwork and reporting requirements and a new level of management to oversee and collect all that paper.

Not with commercial procurement.  NASA just gets the companies internal paperwork and does not get its own specialized paperwork.

That's good to know!!!

[Danderman]

Updates:

The remaining workers are returning to full time. Previously they had gone to 1 unpaid furlough per pay period. (~10% pay cut)

"Recommenced hiring" - although I wouldn't expect a lot soon.  Probably backfilling those that have left since the September layoff. 

I knew they were doing bad but I didn't know they were doing that bad.

Perhaps this isn't clear here due to all the posts from those expecting ponies from Bigelow Real Soon Now, but unless Bigelow gets some large NASA contract, its unlikely that anything significant will be flown anytime soon.

What Bigelow does is build buildings, build full scale mockups and fly subscale models. 

That's my two cents' worth.