The International Space Station could have a timeshare by 2020
Maybe you can’t afford a summer home in outer space, but can I interest you in an affordable timeshare arrangement?
On Monday, Bigelow Aerospace and United Launch Alliance announced a partnership to put an apartment-sized living space in orbit within the next four years.
The living module, called B330, is planned to have 12,000 cubic feet of internal space and can support all manner of zero-gravity research. And yet, the module will also be designed to host space tourists.
“We are exploring options for the location of the initial B330 including discussions with NASA on the possibility of attaching it to the International Space Station (ISS),” said Robert Bigelow, founder and president of Bigelow Aerospace, said in a news release. “In that configuration, the B330 will enlarge the station’s volume by 30 percent and function as a multipurpose testbed in support of NASA’s exploration goals as well as provide significant commercial opportunities. The working name for this module is XBASE or Expandable Bigelow Advanced Station Enhancement.”
“Our hope is that NASA would be the primary customer for that structure, and that we would be given permission to commercialize and, essentially, we would be time-sharing,” Bigelow said at the recent National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo. “If we were flying a cargo mission, then we could accommodate an amateur astronaut or two.
“There are scenarios where it could be a week or two, and there are scenarios where it could be 45 days or 60 days and this would be applicable to if it were on station or if it were a free-flyer, we’d have more latitude to accommodate these kinds of things,” he added.
The Biglelow president added that the habitat module program would consider making room for large international corporations.
“We would love to see Disney have a Disney space station,” Bigelow said.
Bigelow already has a living habitat attached to the ISS, its Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), which arrived at the ISS this weekend. The module will be deployed on the exterior of the station to create more room for astronauts and experiments. The BEAM module will also showcase the technology needed to make B330 successful.
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Image credit: NASA
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