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posted by martyb on Friday September 13 2019, @02:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-a-load-of-hot-air dept.

Bigelow Aerospace Unveils B330 Inflatable Module Mock-Up

Hotel mogul Robert Bigelow wants to take his idea to build inflatable space habitats and run with it — apparently, all the way to the moon and Mars.

On Thursday, the billionaire publicly unveiled Bigelow Aerospace's latest model of an expandable space station prototype, called the "Bigelow Mars Transporter Testing Unit." The mock-up has the volume of four 40-foot-long cargo containers and was built in part for NASA astronauts and engineers to try it out.

Bigelow's immediate goal is to convince NASA — which is testing prototypes made by four other companies— to fund a space-worthy unit, called the B330 (so named because it would have 330 cubic meters of volume). The work is in support of the space agency's $20-30 billion moon-landing program, called Artemis.

The 330 cubic meters of pressurized volume of the B330 compares favorably to the 351.6 m3 of Skylab (the US' first space station) and the 931.57 m3 of the ISS (International Space Station).


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday September 13 2019, @10:37AM (5 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday September 13 2019, @10:37AM (#893579)

    Paraphrase "We can't do anything until we have fixed humanity." Does this not doom us all to failure?

    > once everyone on earth was cared for and dynamics were stabilized

    I don't think that is possible. Try to do this impossible task and don't do anything else until the impossible task is done?

    Further, one might argue that things like moving beyond earth is part of the fix to humanity.

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  • (Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday September 13 2019, @01:42PM (4 children)

    by jmichaelhudsondotnet (8122) on Friday September 13 2019, @01:42PM (#893626) Journal

    These are almost fair questions, I don't dismiss them entirely.

    But you are wrong. Our planet is a a disease right now, anyone who wants to spread to a different planet is in such extreme denial of this that whatever they are going to do on a different planet is just going to extend the nightmare.

    That you even bother to try to take the other side in some kindof half ass way tells me a lot about you, mostly that I don't want to know you.

    Youre like 'maybe it will just get better of bezos gets a spaceship' and this might just turn things around. That is extremely unintelligent and uninformed, or morally blind. Maybe all three. You might want to have that looked at.

    • (Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Saturday September 14 2019, @06:14AM (3 children)

      by jmichaelhudsondotnet (8122) on Saturday September 14 2019, @06:14AM (#893988) Journal

      Also, it is astounding to me how building spaceships is a problem perceived as easy compared to, for instance, housing all of the humans in San Francisco.

      Building spaceships, aka going to the frontier, is the equivalent of saying society is totally beyond repair and giving up.

      Which is totally mad, because the system worked so well for you that you have a billion dollars.

      Wealth to the best of my observational ability makes it easy for you to live with self serving contradictions like this.

      • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday September 16 2019, @11:16AM (2 children)

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday September 16 2019, @11:16AM (#894563)

        > Also, it is astounding to me how building spaceships is a problem perceived as easy compared to, for instance, housing all of the humans in San Francisco.

        The reasons people are homeless are extremely complex. It is not simply a question of providing enough houses. People are homeless due to a complex mix of social, financial and mental problems. To reduce such a complex system to a merely financial one is poor logic. *Perhaps* one could reduce the financial issue; and provide greater welfare to reduce the social issue. It is not clear to me however.

        • (Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Monday September 16 2019, @03:14PM (1 child)

          by jmichaelhudsondotnet (8122) on Monday September 16 2019, @03:14PM (#894630) Journal

          I don't disagree, I am making a comparison.

          All of those things about difficulty and complexity are present in the space problem also, it's even fraught with the perils of outer space.

          But if you have a billion dollars, all of that is preferable to dealing with the fact that there are just some people who are never going to be able to afford and apartment anywhere. You can either kill them, imprison them, pay for them to have a basic life, or there will be shit on the street.

          They have chosen the latter, and to go build spaceships in the middle of nowhere. I refuse to see them as nobel for that.

          Electric cars, tunnels, anything that helps cities is interesting and at least somewhat defensible. Or half and half. Find a way to house 10,000 people and then spend an equal amount on your space adventure.

          • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday September 16 2019, @03:44PM

            by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday September 16 2019, @03:44PM (#894649)

            > All of those things about difficulty and complexity are present in the space problem also, it's even fraught with the perils of outer space.

            I disagree strongly. Engineering problems are very much a closed problem - make the rocket bigger and it goes faster. Societal problems are far harder to manage, lots of strong feedback loops that are obscure and difficult to resolve.

            > You can either kill them, imprison them,

            not really a solution

            > pay for them to have a basic life,

            No! My whole point is this doesn't work. You can't pay someone to be happy and engage with society. The problems are far deeper than you realise I think.