"Sundancer Cluster" Source: Bigelow Aerospace

Bob Bigelow, a Las Vegas native originally portrayed by the media as someone who shuns interviews, has armed guards throughout his Bigelow Aerospace (BA) facilities, and wants the government to stay out of his business, now seems to have opened up a bit. He has done several interviews and presented his plans publically on how he intends to build and launch inflatable space habitats. His candor in suggesting that his chances of eventually making money in space remain about 50-50 and his humility in claiming that he hasn’t done much yet, is refreshing.

Bigelow is one of the genuine mavericks operating in the world of entrepreneurial space commerce. However, the fact that he knows how to run a profitable business provides him significant credibility. Bigelow’s initial claim to fame was development of the highly successful Budget Suites of America Hotel chain the profits from which in 1999 funded the launch and ongoing development of BA that will be up to the $500M level. This can seem like an odd shift in direction until you understand more of his story.

After first investing in other commercial space ventures that eventually looked weak from a business case standpoint, he thought he could do better. He saw a report on NASA's technology development of a large, inflatable space habitat, called “Transhab” and guessed that the concept could work as a commercial venture. Perhaps for a real estate developer like Bigelow, a habitat is a habitat whether it’s at Earth gravity or inflated in microgravity. In any case, when NASA was directed to halt further development due in part to resource limitations, he was able to license the technology. After further development and making significant improvements, BA built and paid the Russians to launch two currently orbiting prototype spacecraft (Genesis I & II) and now has a third larger module (Sundancer) for human habitation under construction.

The Transhab team had demonstrated the feasibility of creating an inflatable habitat that could meet the vacuum, temperature, durability, radiation, safety, habitability, and useability requirements for the space environment. Their goal was to produce a lightweight, small, collapsible package that’s much cheaper to build and transport but that when pressurized internally for life support in a vacuum environment, would provide a strong, stable, large living and work space that could be attached to the International Space Station (ISS). Some space architects working on the team saw Transhab technology as the basis for the first human habitat designed for long-duration occupancy in space, with options for use on planetary surfaces like the Moon.

BA has a full-time Washington DC-based presence in Mike Gold, who doubles as its space savvy corporate counsel. Bigelow still shuns government funding and continues to place his big bets back home in Las Vegas. He makes periodic small “side bets” in DC trying to hopefully both ease and meet highly restrictive government export control (ITAR) regulations that apply to his technology. By necessity, Bigelow and Gold have become savvy about working the government bureaucracy for purposes of small business survival and interestingly this includes developing good relations with NASA. The question I asked myself, is “why NASA"?

Bigelow and Gold recognize NASA’s recent funding of the public-private Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) project with space businesses as a significant potential benefit to BA. Bigelow, who will soon need low-cost, reliable transport of people and cargo to his on-orbit habitats, can benefit from development of those capabilities by U.S. firms partly funded by COTS.

In a recent ABC News article Bigelow states, “I think NASA is on the verge of being irrelevant, except for deep space exploration”. Making provocative statements is a Bigelow hallmark, but I think he means that NASA should leave support of human space exploration as much as possible to industry and instead focus on robotic spacecraft and exploration systems. Elon Musk’s company SpaceX, one of the COTS partners, is developing a low-cost Falcon 9 rocket and space capsule named Dragon that is on the path to eventual rating for support of human transport. Also the Lockheed Atlas V rocket might be adapted for support of humans and serve Bigelow's purpose. This is the big bet that Bigelow has made on services to be provided by other companies and he knows it may be a long-shot but remains optimistic.

Bigelow’s inflatable habitat concepts have evolved along with the space entrepreneurial market and his current objective is to develop “an office building in space” where “other countries or corporations would be our tenants”. He doesn’t consider space tourists or NASA as his customer targets. He needs a low-cost, reliable way to get passengers and cargo to/from his habitats and considers the future SpaceX Falcon 9 Dragon and Boeing’s Atlas V as good options. Keep your eye on Bigelow too because he’s good at grabbing opportunities and developing relationships with entities that allow him maximum leverage. If NASA can be a reliable customer along the way, I won’t be surprised to see Bigelow there with the right product. It’s easy to picture a large, inflatable docked to the ISS for long-duration human habitat studies, including novel exercises that were developed on the SkyLab space station.  Small easy-to-transport packages that can be inflated in a vacuum to make really big habitats can provide new commercial space applications that are driven by innovative visions.  Bigelow knows.