Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Bigelow Aerospace Fast-Tracks Manned Spacecraft

The Sundancer module will provide 180 cubic meters of habitable space and will come fully equipped with life-support systems, attitude control and on-orbit maneuverability, as well as reboost and deorbit capability. This larger module -- sporting a trio of windows -- could support a three-person crew and be on orbit in the second half of 2010, Bigelow told Space News in March of this year.

"We still intend to construct and test the Galaxy spacecraft and/or various parts of it in order to gain familiarity and experience with critical subsystems," Bigelow said in the release. "However, by eliminating the launch of Galaxy, we believe that [Bigelow Aerospace] can move more expeditiously to our next step by focusing exclusively on the challenging and exciting task presented by the Sundancer program."

(Via KurzweilAI.net.)


For every failed Space Shuttle there's someone with real vision and a refined sense of the future who has his eyes on the stars.

3 comments:

frogola said...

bigelow is cool

Anonymous said...

I can imagine the entire UFO community emailing him..Mr B!, did you see any of those things reported..and when he doesn't..He must be hiding something..Maybe he's been coopted! Perhaps he struck a deal with the aliens..

Co-opting a billionaire..I wonder how much that costs..

Sys

Anonymous said...

About a billion or so, depending on their ethical infrastructure vs. threats from certain uber meisters who think they run things.

BTW, Bigelow is no prince charming on a white horse--his fortune, a bit over a billion, comes from cheap housing and cheap hotel rooms. Some have termed him a slum lord. Ah, to be sitting in the gutter, looking up at the stars.

What I'd like to see is the three or four separate new economy billionaires, each of whom is pursuing their own "space visions", join forces to create a sustainable infrastructure from launch facilities, launch vehicles, orbital stations, and space "planes" to supplant NASA for orbital work and/or satellite placement, and leave NASA the moon and MARS, plus planetary probes.

Oh, well, I can dream can't I?