Privately built module heading to ISS next year
The competition heats up: An inflatable module, built by the private company Bigelow for NASA, will be launched next year to ISS inside a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
Read that sentence again to savor the reality of two private companies both building and launching this addition to ISS.
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The competition heats up: An inflatable module, built by the private company Bigelow for NASA, will be launched next year to ISS inside a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
Read that sentence again to savor the reality of two private companies both building and launching this addition to ISS.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Just totally cool.
I was amazed by the comment that astronauts aren’t allowed to eat lettuce grown in space. So, what are Martian colonists supposed to eat?
Its taken NASA years to agree to let a Bigelow module attach to the ISS.
Bigelow has had a module just like this in space for almost 7 years taking pressure radiation and atmosphere readings. Nasa saying they need to dock one to the station for a few more years of testing before letting anyone use one is BS.
Its Nasa dragging its feet in order to make themselves look better and private companies look worse. They can’t let private companies do something cheaper, faster and better than they could.
The dang thing is better armored than the ISS is. Its self sealing. What more do they want? Bullet proof and capable of soft landings?
Agreed, NASA is totally stalling. But did you notice the cost for BEAM? $17.8 million? That is a rounding error on SLS or Orion.
Less than 20 million dollars for a module on the ISS? $20 million would not buy you a single rack on the ISS.
Yes, of course it is much simpler than anything in terms of equipment, etc. Nonetheless, the Alenia built shells of the ESA and US modules are clearly WAY more than $20 million. Anyone want to bet a single CBM port costs more than that, on the side of one of the Node modules?
The folks around here who build these Veggie habs, note their are some “losses” from them before they get shipped down. I.E. the astronauts “sample” the products.
;)
Just a nit here – but how do you fit a Bigelow inside a Dragon?? Even their small test ones are to big?
The embedded video shows that it is stored in the exterior section, the unpressurized cargo-carrier “trunk,” which is exposed to space. Once BEAM is attached, it is expanded/inflated; it is not launched at inflated size. Further, it is not one of Bigelow’s usual habitats but is smaller and sized to fit the station and the cargo ship.
Yes it is ! !
I’d use the unpressurized stowage behind the capsule, leaving interior pressurized volume for fragile goods. IIRC, there will not be anything vacuum will hurt. Technically, “the trunk” is part of the vehicle, so it’s still in the vehicle.
Pity it’s so small. I was just looking at pictures of them testing a prototype of the MMU inside Skylab. It would be nice to have that kind of space on the ISS.
Still tiny compared to most of theirs. Oh well.
Nasa should have accepted the largest one possible.
Even if its not used for people now, it could at least be used for storage.
Eventually a Bigalow module could be used for habitation and this one would have already been there and in use.