It's a big idea. It's a bold idea. And at first blush, it seems a bit of a daft idea. A company called Bigelow Aerospace wants to build space stations for the government and hotels for private customers that will inflate like balloons once they reach outer space. Bigelow’s inflatables have the potential to revolutionize spaceflight by providing lighter, and much larger, places to live in space. But the big question remains: Does anyone really want to live in a space balloon?

NASA intends to find out and has signed a $17.8 million contract with Bigelow to do so. As early as April 8 a deflated module will launch inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The space agency has agreed to attach a test module to the International Space Station, inflate it, and over the course of two years determine if such a contraption can work in space. Crew won’t live in it—inflatables remain too experimental to risk life and limb. But if the module holds up, NASA will invest more money into the technology.

The space agency has said it wants to use the space station as a platform for technologies that will enable, and perhaps lower the cost, of deep space exploration. With the Bigelow module NASA appears to be doing exactly that. “It’s a big step for us, because inflatables can be a big multiplier for us as we move further out into space,” explained Mark Geyer, deputy director of Johnson Space Center, during a recent meeting of NASA’s advisory council.

A big opportunity

Bigelow is confident its technology will work. In an interview Mike Gold, director of BIgelow’s DC operations and business growth, said the company has already launched two autonomous test modules named Genesis 1 and 2, in 2006 and 2007, which are still flying today. The company’s founder, Robert Bigelow, made his fortune in real estate and the hotel business. He envisioned opening a chain of hotels in space when he founded Bigelow Aerospace in 1999.

Bigelow Aerospace

Bigelow Aerospace

Bigelow Aerospace

NASA



Bigelow Aerospace

Bigelow Aerospace

Bigelow Aerospace

But there was a transportation problem. A decade ago, when it flew the Genesis modules, Bigelow thought private spacecraft would come along sooner, lowering the cost of putting people into low-Earth orbit and at the doorstep of its hotels. But the commercial crew vehicles under development by Boeing and SpaceX now won’t be ready until late 2017, at the earliest. “The challenge we have faced is that our progress has outpaced commercial crew,” Gold said.

The company needed something to do in the meantime, and it turned to NASA and developed the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM. It offers Bigelow a chance to further refine its systems, and it gives NASA a chance to kick the tires on a promising but untested technology. NASA will observe the module to see how it handles radiation from space, measure its thermal properties, and test other environmental conditions, such as noise.

If all goes well, NASA will eventually will let its astronauts go inside. “When an astronaut steps inside a Bigelow habitat for the first time, that will be a big moment for the company,” Gold said.

The company could use a shot in the arm. In January Space News reported that the company had laid off 30 to 50 of its approximately 150 employees. Bigelow told the publication his company was overstaffed, and that it was his intent to have the aerospace firm “behave in more of a financially responsible manner, seeking to generate revenues as well as maintaining financial practicality on operating expenses.”

Inflatable advantages

Despite the layoffs the company’s technology remains promising. SIze and weight are the two biggest hurdles to putting lots of stuff into space. It took NASA dozens of costly space shuttle launches to assemble the International Space Station piece by piece. Lacking a rigid structure, inflatables can be folded inside the limited diameter of a rocket fairing. Once in space they can be expanded to create a massive amount of volume. There is also a considerable mass savings.

As for radiation, Gold said Bigelow’s inflatables should be as good, or better than the space station in terms of limiting radiation. Unlike the station’s metallic shell, which scatters radiation from solar flares, the non-metallic skin of the expandable module should reduce this scattering effect.

Then there is debris. “The major concern I hear is, if it’s a balloon, will it pop?” Gold said. “Quite the opposite.” The expandable’s kevlar-like weave should be at least as protective as the station’s aluminum hull when it comes to orbital debris, Gold said. Because of this fabric-like material, Gold also said Beam is likely to prove a quieter location than the notoriously noisy station interior.

Even while Bigelow is working on Beam, it has its eyes set on bigger things, what it calls its B330 module. It is so named because it would offer 330 cubic meters of interior space. By comparison the station has about 425 cubic meters of habitable volume.

Bigelow says this module might support its space hotel ambitions, but also could be used for all manner of spaceflight endeavors. NASA might want to use one as a space station near the Moon, and it could also be modified to support operations on the surface of the Moon. Last July the space agency signed a “NextStep” agreement with Bigelow to study utilization of the B330 module for deep-space exploration. A successful Beam would go a long way toward validating the company’s larger ambitions.

And so we shall see if balloons can once again break barriers. Beginning more than two centuries ago, humans used hot air balloons to throw off their Earth-bound shackles for the first time. Today, Bigelow is betting that it is once again balloon-like technology will enable us to defy Earth’s gravity—this time escaping it entirely into deep space.