A Las Vegas hotel billionaire just unveiled an inflatable space pod designed to ferry NASA astronauts to the moon and Mars - take a look inside
Robert Bigelow made his billions from the hotel chain Budget Suites of America. Like billionaires such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson, he's using his fortune to develop new spaceflight hardware.
Bigelow is known for his idea to launch inflatable space hotels into orbit. Such outposts could support space tourism, research, and other commercial the International Space Station could not.
The basic idea: It's much cheaper to launch habitats folded up to a fraction of their size, then inflate them once in space. There'd also be more room than the rigid metal hulls of a traditional space modules allow.
So far, the company has an impressive track record. It has launched a number of working prototypes into space, the latest of which is the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM. It's currently attached to the International Space Station.
Astronauts and cosmonauts welcomed the new addition in April 2016.
But Bigelow has bigger plans with the far larger and more ambitious B330 model.
"Equipped with two galleys, two toilets, enormous cargo space, and two dissimilar propulsion systems, this is the ideal habitat for a long duration space mission," Bigelow said in his statement on Thursday.
Bigelow Aerospace built the MTTU, a steel-hulled variant that's not supposed to launch into space, in its Las Vegas facility. The company is using it to test internal layouts — and encourage NASA to provide more funding to develop the concept.
The hatch into the B330 contains by about a dozen large air tanks. Once in space, the tanks would release their gases to inflate the final B330 unit to its full operational size.
The hatch leads into the central core of the B330, which Bigelow envisions as packed with cargo prior to launch. Cold storage for food, research, and other supplies is also on the middle deck.
There are three main decks inside: The lower deck is for crew sleep, storage, and entertainment; the middle deck for science experiments, cold storage, work stations, galleys, and growing food; and the upper deck is mainly for medical use and recreation.
Glove boxes in the middle deck could be used to study and pack lunar samples, or biological experiments. Shown at right is a 3D printer, and at center is a surface for laboratory work. The domed ends of the B330 would store large amounts of supplies.
Bigelow also envisions vegetable growth areas in the middle deck next to the galley. Crew would also have access to B330 navigation controls, a station to remotely operate lunar rovers, and other guidance systems.
The upper deck houses a medical research area, a medical isolation unit, and two separate toilet facilities — double the number of the football-field-size International Space Station. (Not shown: an exercise area on the other side of the white partition.)
In the lowest deck are four crew quarters, individual crew locker areas, and separate hygiene booths for the crew to wipe down their bodies (the closest one gets to a shower in microgravity).
Next to the hygiene booths is an entertainment area complete with flexible screen TVs.
Bigelow hopes its two-week demonstration of the Mars Transporter Testing Unit will, in part, help convince NASA it's the company to build out the Gateway for Artemis.
One way it envisions the Gateway is as two B330 units linked together. This would provide about one-third of the volume currently used by astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station, yet with a fraction of the effort and number of modules.
But Bigelow is already thinking ahead with the B330, as evidenced by the name of his ground prototype. "This large space station can accommodate four people indefinitely and five people for many months," he said — perhaps long enough to send a crew to Mars.
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