Bigelow establishes company to market its private space stations
Capitalism in space: Bigelow Aerospace yesterday established a marketing company to research and find potential customers for its private space stations.
“You’ll need deep pockets if you’re interested in staying aboard a Bigelow station; prices will likely run in the ‘low seven figures,'” Bigelow said today. He doesn’t expect tourist jaunts to make up the bulk of his business, however. “What we’ve always anticipated and expected is that we would be very involved in helping foreign countries to establish their human space programs, and be able to facilitate whatever their needs were in whatever context that they wanted to pursue,” he said. “The corporate world, obviously, is huge, and [leveraging] that is also our intent.”
Bigelow already says it will launch to of its large B330 modules in 2021, with another aimed for lunar orbit in 2022. I must note that the 2021 launch date appears to be year later then earlier announcements.
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Capitalism in space: Bigelow Aerospace yesterday established a marketing company to research and find potential customers for its private space stations.
“You’ll need deep pockets if you’re interested in staying aboard a Bigelow station; prices will likely run in the ‘low seven figures,'” Bigelow said today. He doesn’t expect tourist jaunts to make up the bulk of his business, however. “What we’ve always anticipated and expected is that we would be very involved in helping foreign countries to establish their human space programs, and be able to facilitate whatever their needs were in whatever context that they wanted to pursue,” he said. “The corporate world, obviously, is huge, and [leveraging] that is also our intent.”
Bigelow already says it will launch to of its large B330 modules in 2021, with another aimed for lunar orbit in 2022. I must note that the 2021 launch date appears to be year later then earlier announcements.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I wonder if there is a lot of room for improvement in the price if he moved from the traditional model to the more vertically integrated New Space model. I think Bigelow has said they only make half of the parts going into their space stations and the other half comes from the $traditional$ aerospace suppliers. I don’t know if that’s half by dollar amount or number of parts.
Anthony Domanico wrote: “I wonder if there is a lot of room for improvement in the price if he moved from the traditional model to the more vertically integrated New Space model.”
The other parts are probably things like solar arrays, electrical distribution units, power storage units, power conditioning units, docking rings, attitude control and other guidance systems, and other systems that are needed for any space station. Going vertical requires a lot of expertise that even large manufacturers of satellites do not have.
Over time, Bigelow may choose to do better at vertically integrating the business (which is not to be confused with vertical integration of rockets and their payloads), but as a young business they probably cannot afford it right now, possibly struggling financially with the problem of their original hope of having a transport system in 2015 delayed to a 2021 initiation of operations.
Even SpaceX has outsourced several parts of its rockets, although they keep the engines and major portions of the rocket body in house.