Bigelow and SpaceX

[AncientU]

Reusable technology, especially for crew/tourist transport, is essential to private use of Bigelow stations.
Fully propulsive landings of Dragon 2 will either be demo'd as part of CRS-2 or on SpaceX's own dime -- but it will be required for BA-330 or whatever to be viable.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Reusable technology, especially for crew/tourist transport, is essential to private use of Bigelow stations.
Fully propulsive landings of Dragon 2 will either be demo'd as part of CRS-2 or on SpaceX's own dime -- but it will be required for BA-330 or whatever to be viable.

Just to put the reused F9 and Dragon possible price reduction on the right scale, Bigelow is using $20M per seat in the visit pricing currently, a F9R and reused dragon (F9R-~$33M and Dragon V2R-~18M) ~$8M per seat. This also contrasts with today's ISS visit price for tourists of $50M+ to make the tourist visit price to a BA330 of ~$15M. This also would make an impact to other than tourist space usage such as for crew tended experiments. A $10-12M reduction in transit price, although less of the whole for the crew tended experiment, it does still make a significant impact when a business case is dependent on the total cost of such experiments.

[clongton]

BA-330 is not for tourists; it is for NGO and International space stations, per Robert Bigelow.

[MikeAtkinson]

If they were doing tourists then something larger than Dragon would be better. A scaled up one would be better for logistics and give a better price. It looks like one with about 3x the current volume would match F9 v1·2 well.

[TrevorMonty]

Reusable technology, especially for crew/tourist transport, is essential to private use of Bigelow stations.
Fully propulsive landings of Dragon 2 will either be demo'd as part of CRS-2 or on SpaceX's own dime -- but it will be required for BA-330 or whatever to be viable.

Just to put the reused F9 and Dragon possible price reduction on the right scale, Bigelow is using $20M per seat in the visit pricing currently, a F9R and reused dragon (F9R-~$33M and Dragon V2R-~18M) ~$8M per seat. This also contrasts with today's ISS visit price for tourists of $50M+ to make the tourist visit price to a BA330 of ~$15M. This also would make an impact to other than tourist space usage such as for crew tended experiments. A $10-12M reduction in transit price, although less of the whole for the crew tended experiment, it does still make a significant impact when a business case is dependent on the total cost of such experiments.

The Bigelow website is still showing $26m a seat for Dragon.
Until NASA approves reuse of dragon and F9 for crew flights I can't these prices changing.
When it comes to cargo, Bigelow may allow SpaceX to reuse both, especially if shipping charges a reduced.

[Jcc]

Reusable technology, especially for crew/tourist transport, is essential to private use of Bigelow stations.
Fully propulsive landings of Dragon 2 will either be demo'd as part of CRS-2 or on SpaceX's own dime -- but it will be required for BA-330 or whatever to be viable.

Just to put the reused F9 and Dragon possible price reduction on the right scale, Bigelow is using $20M per seat in the visit pricing currently, a F9R and reused dragon (F9R-~$33M and Dragon V2R-~18M) ~$8M per seat. This also contrasts with today's ISS visit price for tourists of $50M+ to make the tourist visit price to a BA330 of ~$15M. This also would make an impact to other than tourist space usage such as for crew tended experiments. A $10-12M reduction in transit price, although less of the whole for the crew tended experiment, it does still make a significant impact when a business case is dependent on the total cost of such experiments.

The Bigelow website is still showing $26m a seat for Dragon.
Until NASA approves reuse of dragon and F9 for crew flights I can't these prices changing.
When it comes to cargo, Bigelow may allow SpaceX to reuse both, especially if shipping charges a reduced.

Considering that there will be no commercial crew flights for a couple of years yet, $26M is a reasonable placeholder, but only that.

Bigalow has the potential to open new possibilities for space research for less well-off countries, corporations and very likely ESA and NASA (after ISS is decommissioned). As long as safety and reliability are at least as high as the ISS, it seems like a no-brainier that NASA would want to either fund specific research projects to be carried out on a Bigalow station, or send Astronauts to do them. Russia is reportedly designing their own inflatables.

Besides the learning process of how to build a space station and live in space, there are specific research objectives that are meant to test technologies and biological science needed for long duration space flight to Mars, etc. I am pretty sure they will not run out of research questions before the ISS is EOL, and if they can do that on a Bigalow station for a fraction of the cost, that's more money that can go towards building deep space habitats and Mars surface habitats and technologies.

[MikeAtkinson]

Unless they are NASA astronauts then NASA has no say in the matter.

Realistically even with reuse it is going to be difficult to get the price down to less than $10m per person with Dragon. A larger capsule or upper stage reuse are needed to get the price below $5m. Add in frequent flights and the price might come down to about $2m. There are probably not enough people able and willing to spend that amount to allow weekly flights of 20 people so pure tourism does not seem viable.

However, anything less than $10m should be enough to get corporate, NGO and government interest.

[TrevorMonty]

Unless they are NASA astronauts then NASA has no say in the matter.

Bigelow doesn't have to follow NASA, but Bigelow is not in a position to do their own verification of crew vehicles.

[Coastal Ron]

Bigelow doesn't have to follow NASA, but Bigelow is not in a position to do their own verification of crew vehicles.

Why not?  If they are verifying it for their own needs, who else would do it?

[joek]

Bigelow doesn't have to follow NASA, but Bigelow is not in a position to do their own verification of crew vehicles.

Why not?  If they are verifying it for their own needs, who else would do it?

FAA

[TrevorMonty]

I can't see Bigelow risking his customers and his business to anything but a NASA certified crew vehicle/system.

[okan170]

I can't see Bigelow risking his customers and his business to anything but a NASA certified crew vehicle/system.

During some of the recent PR for BEAM, Bigelow gave a few interviews on the news, but one thing that came up a few times was the desire to be officially "NASA-certified" as it would bring a lot of credibility for customers.  I can see that being a real draw for the station transportation part as well.

[MikeAtkinson]

My understanding is that NASA certifies for a particular launcher/vehicle combination doing a particular mission, e.g. to ISS. Dragon would then need additional certification for say a lunar mission. Proximity oops, comms, services needed while docked, emergency egress procedures and a host of other things would be different for Bigelow stations and NASA is not going to certify Dragon for those.

[The Amazing Catstronaut]

BA-330 is not for tourists; it is for NGO and International space stations, per Robert Bigelow.

To elaborate a little on that (pardon if somebody has already done so in this thread); the "space hotel" idea seems to be something that came partly out of the fanbase, and  partly off the back of VG's (along with XCOR's, but much less visible) suborbital space tourism endeavours. Remember, when Bigelow sent up Genesis 1 in 2006, the Ansari X Prize win in 2004 was still extremely prominent in people's minds. Back in the mid-naughties, the general public was fairly convinced that mankind's next foray into space would be off the backs of tourism. Since Bigelow happened to make his money through hotels, it wasn't that difficult for people to mislead themselves. 

[AncientU]

My understanding is that NASA certifies for a particular launcher/vehicle combination doing a particular mission, e.g. to ISS. Dragon would then need additional certification for say a lunar mission. Proximity oops, comms, services needed while docked, emergency egress procedures and a host of other things would be different for Bigelow stations and NASA is not going to certify Dragon for those.

Someday, hopefully within this decade, travel to space will not be solely under NASA control.  Certainly commercial space is now completely independent of NASA or any Government technical control.  Having a Dragon 2 that is certified by NASA might be easier to sell for first commercial passengers, but it won't last long as a pseudo-requirement.

[A_M_Swallow]

My understanding is that NASA certifies for a particular launcher/vehicle combination doing a particular mission, e.g. to ISS. Dragon would then need additional certification for say a lunar mission. Proximity oops, comms, services needed while docked, emergency egress procedures and a host of other things would be different for Bigelow stations and NASA is not going to certify Dragon for those.

When NASA decides to do a rent-a-workshop mission it will want to certify the manned spacecraft for operations at and near the BA-330 spacestation. IMHO that will be near the time when the ISS is splashed, so 2023-2025.

[Coastal Ron]

Bigelow doesn't have to follow NASA, but Bigelow is not in a position to do their own verification of crew vehicles.

Why not?  If they are verifying it for their own needs, who else would do it?

FAA

No.  According to the FAA:

"The FAA licenses the launch of a launch vehicle, reentry of a reentry vehicle, and the operation of a launch or reentry site under authority granted to the Secretary of Transportation in the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984, as amended, codified in 49 U.S.C. Subtitle IX, chapter 701 (Chapter 701), and delegated to the FAA Administrator. The Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation exercises licensing authority under Chapter 701."

The FAA does not certify spacecraft.

Now I know why Bigelow would want to rely on NASA certification for the spacecraft they want to use to support their private space station, all I'm pointing out is that they could do their own certification - which could be as simple as having someone demonstrate that a flight doesn't kill someone.  So for their needs they could certify a crew vehicle.

[A_M_Swallow]

If the FAA is granted authorisation to license mineral rights on asteroids then it can be granted the power to certify both aircraft and spacecraft. Plenty can change in the next few decades.

[Coastal Ron]

My understanding is that NASA certifies for a particular launcher/vehicle combination doing a particular mission, e.g. to ISS. Dragon would then need additional certification for say a lunar mission. Proximity oops, comms, services needed while docked, emergency egress procedures and a host of other things would be different for Bigelow stations and NASA is not going to certify Dragon for those.

When NASA decides to do a rent-a-workshop mission it will want to certify the manned spacecraft for operations at and near the BA-330 spacestation. IMHO that will be near the time when the ISS is splashed, so 2023-2025.

What NASA has been alluding to is that they will not own another space station, and will use private stations if they have a need after the ISS.  And no doubt they would have minimum standards that they would have, but I think they will be more flexible at that point since they will only be just another customer.  Maybe a big important customer, but it won't be like it is today where NASA owns the destination and is contracting for transportation services - there may only be one private destination in space to do what it is they want to do.

This is not unlike what the government already does when they contract for work to be done in hazardous environments.  Sometimes they just have to go with whatever the industry standards are at that time.

[Coastal Ron]

If the FAA is granted authorisation to license mineral rights on asteroids then it can be granted the power to certify both aircraft and spacecraft. Plenty can change in the next few decades.

Why would Congress assign the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) the responsibility to license mineral rights?  The FAA's mission, per their website, is:

"Our continuing mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world."

The FAA don't know squat about mineral rights.

Besides NASA, which is not a regulatory agency but studies the composition of things in space, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is probably the closest agency to be given that responsibility, if Congress is thinking straight, since they already assess and monitor the mineral and material industries both in the U.S. and around the world.  Extending their responsibility off-Earth would be easy, would fold into their current charter, and would utilize existing expertise.

Making the FAA responsible for spacecraft the same way they are aircraft here on Earth is not a stretch, but so far hasn't happened.