$14.9 million for 4-weeks at Bigelow space station

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I'll admit that his business case seems a bit of a stretch<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />emphasis on the word <b>seems</b>. i dont run a big hotel suite, and i probably never could because i couldnt wrap my head around all the stuff needed to run such a huge successful business.<br />Now the other factor here is, that we dont know the details, and we never will. Who would be so stupid and publish all the details of how he intends to create a new Microsoft of space, paving the way for competition ?<br /><br />Bigelow is not NASA, obligated to tell us everything, and especially the details of his business plan. He apparently does not need investors either, so he might not be telling anybody. <br />Masten space, a much smaller player in private space field, has hinted several times that they intend to make profit on flying suborbital but their target market is not tourists, they arent telling either who IS.<br /><br />so i call for a stop of armchair business analysis and lets get back to armchair space engineering nerdlichkeit <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> because half-informed opinions are not necessarily the smartest ones to throw around.

 

[spacy600]

From 2005 the 4 to 6 weeks and other things<br />are almost the same as what Bigelow is doing.<br /><br />http://selenianboondocks.blogspot.com/2005/10/aces-conference-summary-part-ii.html<br />and<br />http://www.spacetransportnews.com/

 

[Boris_Badenov]

<font color="yellow">Could someone explain again why this should change with Bigelow's space stations, that is why are countries/space agencies around the world now lining up to use Bigelow's space stations at only a slightly reduced price from what they have to pay now? <br /> </font><br /><br /> Microgravity manufacturing returns <br /><font color="orange"> One of the unfortunate tendencies of NASA is for the agency to implement a good idea in a bad way and thereby discredit that idea. Prime examples include RLVs and space tethers. Another is the proposal that microgravity can produce useful scientific knowledge and eventually commercial products. There is a mistaken general impression that NASA's microgravity research failed. In fact, all that has been proven so far is that if a researcher must scale mountains of paperwork, spend many millions of dollars, and still wait years to see a microgravity experiment fly and return results, then he or she is unlikely to bother. <br /><br />In his presentation this week at the National Space Symposium, Robert Bigelow included microgravity experiments and operations by businesses among the target markets for the Bigelow Aerospace habitats. Now comes word that Spacehab will also pursue the microgravity market as well: SPACEHAB Announces New Company Initiative: Company to Focus on Space Based Manufacturing - SpaceHab - Apr.10.07.<br /><br />The reason there is hope for these plans, despite the bad rep for microgravity applications, is that the results from the experiments that were done on the Shuttle, Mir, and the ISS are actually quite promising. See the review talks by Neal Pellis and Larry DeLucas given in 2005 at the ACES Commercial Opportunities in Space conference, which included Nobelist Baruch Blumberg as the keynote speaker. See also Jon Goff's notes from the meeting. <br /><br />As indicated by Pellis and DeLucas, it isn't true that anything done in micr</font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#993300"><span class="body"><font size="2" color="#3366ff"><div align="center">. </div><div align="center">Never roll in the mud with a pig. You'll both get dirty & the pig likes it.</div></font></span></font> </div>

 

[bitbanger]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Could anybody explain why any corporation would be interested in Bigelow's services now? <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />I can think of at least one industry that would need pressurized volume, and is likely to be able to recoup expenses quickly. <br /><br />Lets just call it the exotic entertainment industry.

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">My impression was that 1 of the 3 Bigelow stations would be for the no-vibration teleoperated experiments. I was thinking of the more populated stations.</font>/i><br /><br />Apparently Bigelow plans to tap nations who want an astronaut corps but do not have the financial resources to build up their own version of NASA + ISS. From a Washington Post article:<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The main purpose of the space stations -- earlier called space hotels -- will be to provide "hang time," or time in weightlessness, for astronauts from nations that have no rights to use the International Space Station. Bigelow said he believes there are 50 to 60 nations that might be interested in sending astronauts into space to train and conduct experiments.<br /><br />"There are something like 225 active astronauts in the world now, but we don't see why there shouldn't be 2,250," Bigelow said. "The technology is there and the interest is there; we want to bring them together."<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote></i>

 

[docm]

And I can't imagine him making such a move absent discussing it with the potential customers at length. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spacester]

You're supposing he hasn't thought of that?<br /><br />Have you read the latest interviews where he talks about ITAR? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>