History
Bigelow originally licensed the multi-layer, expandable space module technology from NASA after Congress canceled the International Space Station (ISS) TransHab project following delays and budget constraints in the late 1990s. Bigelow has three Space Act agreements whereby Bigelow Aerospace is the sole commercializer of several of NASA's key expandable module technologies.
Bigelow continued to develop the technology for a decade, redesigning the module fabric layers—including adding proprietary extensions of Vectran shield fabric, "a double-strength variant of Kevlar" -- and developing a family of uncrewed and crewed expandable spacecraft in a variety of sizes. Bigelow invested US$75 million in proprietary extensions to the NASA technology by mid-2006, and $180 million into the technology by 2010. In early 2010, NASA came full circle to once again investigate "making inflatable space-station modules to make roomier, lighter, cheaper-to-launch spacecraft" by announcing plans in its budget proposal released February 22, 2010. NASA is "considering connecting a Bigelow expandable craft to the ISS to verify their safety by testing life support, radiation shielding, thermal control and communications capabilities."
Since early on, Bigelow has been intent on "pursuing markets for a variety of users including biotech and pharmaceutical companies and university research, entertainment applications and government military and civil users." The business model includes "'leasing out' small space stations or habitats made of one or more inflatable modules to different research communities or corporations.". Despite these broad plans for space commercialization, the space tourism destination and space hotel monikers were frequently used by many media outlets following the 2006/2007 launches of Genesis I and Genesis II. Robert Bigelow has been explicit that he is aiming to do business in space in a new way, with "low cost and rapid turnaround, contrary to traditional NASA ISS and Space Shuttle operations and bureaucracy."
In October 2010, Bigelow announced that it has agreements with six sovereign nations to utilize on-orbit facilities of the commercial space station: United Kingdom, Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Sweden. In February 2011, Dubai of the United Arab Emirates became the seventh nation to have signed on.
As of 2011, Bigelow employs an in-house team of model makers, coming from the film and architecture industries, to make detailed models of their space habitats and space stations. Scale models have been sent to "potential customers, including governments and corporations, as a reminder of the possibilities."
Due to delays in launch capability to transport humans to low-Earth orbit, Bigelow dramatically reduced their staff in late September 2011, because crew transportation would become available "years after the first BA 330 could be ready." In late March 2012 Bigelow began increasing staff levels once again.
Read more about this topic: Bigelow Aerospace
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