In reply to Chive Talkin\':
It’s very cool tech; Bob Bigelow is worth reading about. He funds a UFO centre and Bigfoot hunts. Going off the “Glassdoor.com” reviews he is an awful person to work for. It’s amazing that the people working for him have managed as much as they have - they must have some real superstar people.
I believe the NASA patents on the tech have recently expired and other firms are building them now - the Sierra Nevada Corporation have gone public - https://www.space.com/amp/sierra-nevada-inflatable-habitat-moon-gateway.htm...
SNC also have the Dreamchaser space plane which is pretty cool if likely soon to be redundant and as “technological dead end” as any other winged spacecraft that isn’t air breathing.
Odds are high Bigelow Aerospace doesn’t have long left as a company and it’s high talent is in negotiations for jobs elsewhere.
I had a very interesting chat with a former high level NASA guy who has visited Bigelow Aerospace. My interpretation would be that it sounds a like like my imaginary Bond villain’s lair.
I’ve no doubt inflatable tech has a big future in space. Then again so did Robert Heinlein back in 1949 when he had dual walled dome houses being inflated and then photo-cured on Mars in “The Red Planet”.
SpaceX are presenting on their Starship next week - first test flights in a month or so. Launched in to orbit it will have about half the pressurised volume of the entire ISS. Much more of you cut in to the fuel and oxidiser tanks as with the early Skylab plans. Could knock the wind out of inflatables for a while - until people want even bigger space habitats...
Post edited at 14:04
