Thursday, January 21, 2010

Bigelow's "Hopping" Lunar Base Idea


Bigelow Aerospace is on the verge of expanding its commercial space station operations. Bigelow wants to provide low-cost commercial volume in space - for rent or lease - to both national space agencies and to the private sector.

Bigelow himself thnks that his commercial modules will be ready to launch into orbit by 2015. Weither it is launched on a NASA rocket or SpaceX's Falcon 9 that is still under development. And Bigelow has his one ideas aobut building his very own heavy -lift launcher; currently referred to as "Big Bertha."

Bigelow will have his own set of astronauts who will serve and take care of the housekeeping duties while the inflatible modules are out in space. That leaves the client with crew to jsut do their primary jobs.

One of the wildest ideas is to group multiple modules together and that id could make a soft touch down on the moon - with the crew riding in it no less. If they need to move to another location, no problem; just move the entire base.


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Ref. Space.com, by Leonard David, January 20, 2010. (http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/private-space-stations-bigelow-100120.html).
Image is from Space.com that came from Bigelow Aerospace space station design.

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