Alright good morning from another fabulous day here in Las Vegas looks
great outside. I think we're gonna head over to Bigelow Aerospace. Let's talk
today about the Bigelow B330 which is an inflatable habitat that Bigelow wants
to send a space to make it easier to build structures and get them up and
running as fast as possible. I don't think they're gonna let us in but we'll
go over there anyways and maybe we'll just look at the sign and we'll talk about it.
Alright so we made it too Bigelow Aerospace. I tried to go inside we
emailed them a couple days ago but unfortunately this was kind of short
notice so they didn't have anybody available to show me around but inside
this is where they build the B330 which is an inflatable habitat that they want
to send a space where astronauts and potentially even tourists could go live
and work in space. Now the B 330 is about three hundred and thirty cubic meters in
volume which is where it gets the name from and it's designed to be a fully
functional inflatable habitat it would start in a very small state so that it
could fit on top of a pretty skinny rocket like a Falcon 9 or an Atlas V or
something like, they'll launch into space and that's where they could inflate it
and actually get the full volume available for astronauts. Now one of the
main things that Bigelow is focusing on is the lunar gateway it should be no
secret that NASA is trying to get astronauts back to the moon by 2024 one
of NASA's plans is to get a pretty stripped-down
lunar gateway in place which is really just kind of a tin can that has a power
module attached to it where astronauts could transfer from their spacecraft to
a lander and then go land on the moon eventually NASA wants to expand that and
have a livable habitat where astronauts could stay a little more long term right
now NASA's plans for the lunar gateway are pretty short-term they actually need
a visiting spacecraft to provide life support but the Bigelow B330 would be
able to fill a lot of those gaps and provide long-term habitats for
astronauts and Bigelow is pushing pretty hard for this they've told NASA that
they could have the B330 ready to fly in as little as forty two months now
that quick timeline is pretty essential for NASA especially since they're trying
to get astronauts on the moon by 2024 so they're pretty much ready to go and
they're pushing hard to actually get this thing in lunar orbit the B 330
isn't limited though to Earth orbit or lunar orbit I mean this thing could go
anywhere as long as it can generate power from the Sun it could provide a
livable habitat for astronauts pretty much anywhere in our solar system one of
the forefront items that it could potentially be used for is if you take
two of these B 330s and hook them together it could be used as sort of a
transport habitat from Earth to Mars for astronauts that are on long-duration
missions now the B330 is packed with features already including things like
radiation shielding to keep the astronauts safe one of the things that
it does not have though is windows. That's kind of a bummer if you're going to
space I would want to look out the window to see the moon and see the Earth
but they do have room for kind of curved TVs so that astronauts can at least see
a picture of what's happening outside one of the original ideas the Bigelow
Aerospace had for the B 330 was to actually attach it to the International
Space Station and then start sending space tourists to the International
Space Station that could live in the B330 at the moment though it seems like
Bigelow does not have plans for that though particularly because of how hard
it is to kind of coordinate that there are so many different agencies that are
now running the International Space Station that they would have to
coordinate with like eleven different legal departments just to set up the
infrastructure needed to get tourists on to the International Space Station
additionally as of right now just to get astronauts up to the International Space
Station people will be paying something along the lines of like 50 million
dollars for a ticket up to the space station, to live in the habitat and then
back down to earth which, trying to find a customer that's willing to pay 50
million dollars for a ticket, there's probably not a lot of those out there
now if you were to compare the B330 habitat to like the International Space
Station's Destiny module the Destiny module is about a hundred and six cubic
meters compared to the 330 cubic meters of the B 330 the Destiny module is about
15 tonnes in mass and the B330 is 23 tonnes but what that means is that you get two
hundred and ten percent more volume for only 53 percent more mass now one of the
concerns that you might have is if it's an inflatable habitat how robust is this
going to be for ballistic materials and space junk that's out there and Bigelow
has said that the actual B330 is more prepared to handle that sort of
ballistic impact then actually the international space station is in order
to handle that it basically has about 24 to 36 layers of material and when fully
inflated it's still about 18 inches thick it's designed to have two solar
arrays, two thermal radiators for heat dissipation as well as life support
systems to sustain a crew of up to six astronauts it's also got things like a
zero-g toilet with solid and liquid waste collection, semi-private berths for
each crew member, exercise equipment, a food storage and preparation station
lighting, and a personal hygiene station so this thing is got it all. now Bigelow
is designing the B330 so that a variety of
spacecraft can dock with it they intend for the Soyuz to dock with it the Orion
capsule, the crew Dragon capsule the CST-100 Starliner so they're prepared for
everything to be able to dock right directly to the B330
now the designs and the plans for the B 330 started off as the original transit
habitat which was NASA's development project in the 1990s to develop a
habitat that they could use to transport astronauts from Earth to Mars that
program unfortunately had tons of cost overruns and delays. Congress eventually
passed a resolution banning NASA from spending any further funding on the
development of the trans-habitat and Bigelow purchased all the patents and
development work that had been done thus far now Bigelow airspace and the B330
is one of five companies that are developing habitats for NASA to use as
part of the lunar gateway ultimately NASA is going to evaluate all these
design considerations and choose probably just one contractor to actually
build it. Alright I am super excited to see what NASA decides who they decide to
go with I think Bigelow has really got a shot at this with their B330.
Alright, it is crazy hot out here I gotta get back in the car... See ya!