[extropy-chat] SPACE: Deep Impact shows strong spectral lines...

[Neil Halelamien]

On 7/6/05, Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> But you are right, however Bigelow Aerospace has some excellent space
> habitat modules http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/news.html and the
> design for its "Nautilus Moon Cruiser" seems just the ticket. Bigelows
> first hab module will be launching on SpaceX's Falcon 5 booster in
> November. 

I think it used to be scheduled for November, but after some bumping
of schedules (partially due to launch range conflicts between SpaceX's
Falcon I and the Air Force's Titan IV), the first launch of the Falcon
V (carrying Bigelow's prototype hab module) is the second quarter of
2006:

http://www.spacex.com/index.html?section=falcon&content=http%3A//www.spacex.com/falcon_overview.php
http://www.spacex.com/index.html?section=updates&content=http%3A//www.spacex.com/updates.php

I'm actually a little skeptical of even this launch date, as the first
launch of the Falcon I is late September. ~6 months seems like an
awfully short time to go from a rocket with one first-stage engine to
a rocket with five such engines. I would love to be pleasantly
surprised, though.

> Their $50 million "Americas Space Prize" deadline is 2010,
> which I'm betting Rutan will have won by 2007 or 2008.

I'm not so sure about that -- Rutan seems plenty busy with other
projects at the moment. I'd pin my money on SpaceX (which has already
announced their intention to compete for the ASP), or -maybe- a team
with SpaceX building the rocket and Rutan building a reentry vehicle
as payload.

> If it turns out that a 2011 rendezvous cannot occur, it appears that
> Tempel orbits in a 1:2 resonance with Jupiter, which has an 11.86 year
> orbit. With Mars having a nearly 2 year orbit, it appears that using
> Tempel as a bus for an orbital transfer can happen about every 12
> years. That amount of time should allow for plenty of private space
> development. Once Bigelow's orbital hotels are in operation in 2010, a
> moon base is apparently their next step a few years later, which is all
> the infrastructure needed to launch missions to Mars and Jupiter in
> 2023.

Exciting times. In case anyone hasn't seen the recent PopSci articles
on Bigelow's projects, here are some links:

"The Five-Billion-Star Hotel"
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,20967,1027551,00.html

"Low-Earth Orbit, and Beyond: Preview Bigelow's moon cruiser and
corporate space yacht"
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,20967,1027555,00.html