Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas is making a bet against which the gaming tables in the same city pale into insignificance. It aims to offer tourist accommodations in orbit. Using a Dnepr booster from ISC Kosmotras, the company has just launched its Genesis 1 module.

Bigelow’s plan is to invest $75 million in creating expandable space habitats. It’s backed by hotelier Robert Bigelow, founder of Budget Suites of America.

So far, it appears the launch was successful. The spacecraft is in communication with ground controllers.

The Genesis 1 is to be injected into orbit around Earth. Bigelow has created an Aerospace Mission Control Center near Las Vegas for this and future launches.

According to SPACE.com, once stable orbit has been reached, mission controllers will then run tests to determine if all of the onboard systems work correctly.

Genesis 1 is intended to remain in orbit for years. It’s a critical tool for the company to test how such habitats can survive the challenges of a space environment. This includes space debris, often flying at missile-like speeds, and solar radiation far more intense than anything experienced here on earth.

The expandable module was tested extensively here on Earth prior to launch, but it needs to survive the acid test of space before human habitation can be seriously contemplated.

The expandable habitat is made largely of soft shell materials — an important design innovation.  Such materials can be configured and reconfigured more flexibly than traditional spacecraft bodies, and weigh considerably less.

Weight is a major consideration in launch costs, and launch costs are by far the greatest factor in space construction project costs. Consequently, the new soft shell materials should significantly reduce costs compared to traditional approaches.

Mike Gold, a spokesman for the company, stated, “We believe that (this design) will not only offer protection equal to traditional habitat designs, but will actually exceed those.”

The company is not relying upon Genesis 1 to perform flawlessly or to answer all of its crucial questions.  Indeed, a Genesis 2 module has been prepared for mission in parallel to Genesis 1 and will soon be launched.

The company expects it will have to launch between six and 10 test modules to satisfactorily prove the technology and economics to justify permanent private space habitats.

The goal is to offer tourists private luxury accommodations approximately 1,100 cubic ft. each. (Eventually, more spacious accommodations would no doubt be provided.)

Genesis 1 will be the first expandable housing system actually tested in orbit.

In a statement that Ayn Rand would have admired, Robert Bigelow has declared: “A free system called capitalism works very well on Earth, and there is nothing about microgravity that changes this. We need to encourage creativity, imagination, and innovation, in order to bring the benefits of space development to fruition, not just for the privileged few, but for all of humanity.”

Historically, government-funded spacecraft launch programs have relied upon the big extravaganza to prove a point, all too often political rather than scientific or humanitarian in nature.

In such cases, the success or failure of a single mission can be crucial. The new approach now being undertaken by startups such as Bigelow Aerospace and our Transformational Technologies Portfolio holding SpaceDev (SPDV.OB: OTC BB) is more akin to that of Henry Ford.

Mr. Ford’s genius was not so much in the invention of a car — which others had done successfully before him — but in the recognition that a system for reliable manufacture of numerous cars was the answer.

I’ve often said, much to the surprise of others, that we’ve never had a real space program. We’ve had a series of experiments.

In his book, The High Frontier, Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill put forth a blueprint for a real space program that would empower the earth literally and figuratively. Though written in the 1970s, this book is as timely today as ever and I highly recommend it.

It transformed my view of what was possible for human civilization, and I have to believe that were it part of academic curricula, many students would graduate with a different view of how their lives might look.

Now the real space program begins. Visionaries such as Robert Bigelow and the founders of SpaceDev are leading the way. We can profit by investing in their enterprises. (Bigelow Airspace is still privately held.)

It took just a few short decades to move from the first trial and error experiments of Henry Ford’s initial production line to mass manufactured automobiles proliferating throughout society.

As the infrastructure for space launch and development finally gets created, we will see in the decades ahead a proliferation of wonders to boggle the imagination. These will include habitats, exploration vehicles, and even mining expeditions (“there’s gold in them thar asteroids”).

Toward the end of this century, I fully expect a substantial portion of the human race to be living in artificial space worlds, each with its unique source and commercial attractions. Some will offer perfect mile-long ski slopes. (I can just see many of my Colorado friends and colleagues smiling.)

Other scientific breakthroughs will offer the chance to experience, and even interact with, endangered species — or species long extinct now brought back to life through the marvels of genetic engineering. Already, scientists are exploring reconstruction of the mammoth genome and birthing mammoths through female elephants. What would you pay to go watch woolly mammoths and sabertooth tigers?

Many of us have had dreams (literally or figuratively) of flying under our own power. Perhaps the ultimate tourist experience will be strapping on a pair of plastic wings and flying like a bird through clouds in an orbital space habitat.

Sound preposterous? Such a habitat will essentially be an enormous cylinder spinning around its own axis to generate the experience of gravity on the interior. (It uses centrifugal force. Everything inside the cylinder presses against its inner surface. Think of a merry-go-round and you get the general idea. In the middle is a “sweet spot” of zero or micro-gravity. That’s where you fly.)

People in Henry Ford’s time would have laughed if we had told them that their grandchildren would be driving Hummers, Volkswagen Beetles, SUVs and Lamborghinis.

Once the basic system of production was established and perfected, such an explosion of diversity was the logical outcome. It will happen again in space, yet on a far grander scale. The profit opportunities will be, well, astronomical.

To your profitable future,

Jonathan Kolber
July 19, 2006

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