Space Hotel Company May Provide Inflatable Expansion Module For ISS

Great. It is the best what NASA can do: help private companies develop their projects. And ISS is a great test ground. They help Ad Astra with VASIMR, Space X with Falcon 9 / Dragon, Boeing with CST-100. While there is no mission at the moment, all this hardware is needed for any future mission. We will be ready when somebody points at an celestial object and says: there we go!

I agree. The idea of sending up a privately built capsule on a privately built rocket sounds pretty cool. Kinda makes me think of the movies and shows with everyone having different spacecraft. There's only been a couple different manned spacecraft flying at one time for the whole planet! Soon that number will double and triple thanks to private firms getting into the mix. Delicious.

yeah, I think the commercial space industry is really gonna make a spark for missions and projects in space. With credibility from NASA, that will be even more true.

TransHab was cancelled by NASA then licensed to Bigelow, who now has patented a slew of improvements - everything from utility runs to spaces in the hab to hide in during solar flares and how to mount windows.

Their first Sundancer module is manifested to go up on a SpaceX Falcon 9 in 2014, to be followed by 2 other modules and a docking hub/power bus. Together they don't make the hotel the rags harp on, but a commercial space station where those who can't get time on ISS can go.

Nasa will need to expand the pool in Houston to fit the extensions :)

One generations plants the trees, the next enjoys the shade.

I want to be the first space hotel employee. I have a great resume and qualifications! dobermanmacleod@gmail.com

Ok, I have a couple of questions that might sound nuts but I really can't resist, because I just may be nuts. We all have known through all these years that the Saturn V, with the mighty F-1 engine; is the best super heavy lift rocket we've yet designed, correct? And that somehow all the blueprints and molds for those fantastic multimillion dollar engines were somehow destroyed, apparently by accident? So why is it that we can't take a casting from the authentic F-1 standing at Kennedy, refine a 3-D mapping of it's bell housing from that, make the necessary adjustment for temp, and create a new series of molds till we get an exact replica of our authentic F-1 bell? This is not the early to mid 70's anymore. Seriously, our nation understands that we needed to advance our technology, and the shuttles were great vehicles for their task. But at the same time we are now paying huge fees to another nation to boost mass we can more efficiently lift with our own proven design. By all means, keep working with the startups, but keep our Program's independence as well. We are supposed to be looking to get the most out of everything we have, unless I misunderstood the President. I'll tell you all this. I may just be a dumb machinist in metal or wood with some tool and die experience, but you turn me loose on that F-1, and I'll make you another one.

Not as easy as it sounds, plus the 1 million lb/ft thrust F1 did have problems. After Apollo the F-1A was developed with 2 million lb-ft of thrust, but never flown.

They share one continuing problem that: a high manufacturing cost, along with the same problem with the rest of the Saturn V system. That, and high operational costs, are why Saturn V was discontinued.

The Russian RD-170 engine uses 4 cheaper combustion chambers off a common turbopump instead of 1 huge chamber and sits right in the middle power wise; just shy of 1.8 million lb/ft.

An even more affordable alternative could come from SpaceX, the makers of the Falcon 9, its very inexpensive Merlin 1 engines, and Dragon spacecraft. They've offered to build a 1.7 million lb/ft Merlin 2 engine for NASA along with a family of rockets that would exceed even Saturn V's capacity (specifically - the Falcon XX)