Genesis 1 internal images released

Bigelow Aerospace released yesterday some images from the interior of the Genesis 1 module, including some objects, like photos and playing cards, floating inside. (Some of these objects are blurred, which the company attributes to the low-res imagery returned to date; future missions will have more and better cameras and more high-bandwidth communications.) These photos […]

More on Bigelow

For this week’s issue of The Space Review, I wrote an extended article about Bigelow Aerospace based on Robert Bigelow’s speech at the NewSpace 2006 conference Friday, a media tour of the Bigelow Aerospace factory in North Las Vegas the previous day, and the interview I had with Bigelow last week as well. The intent […]

A visit to Bigelow Aerospace

A day after a visit to Bigelow Aerospace’s corporate headquarters to interview Robert Bigelow, myself and a number of other reporters traveled up to the company’s manufacturing facility in an industrial park in North Las Vegas (with a spectacular view of the Las Vegas skyline) for a press conference and tour. At the press conference, […]

Meeting Bigelow

When most people arrive in Las Vegas, they make a beeline for the casinos. Me, I went in a different direction (literally and figuratively), paying a visit to the corporate headquarters of Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas. (This is a separate location from their manufacturing facility in North Las Vegas.) I spent over an hour […]

A space hotel Genesis

In an essay in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Taylor Dinerman sees the launch of Genesis 1 last week as a key milestone towards the eventual development of space hotels. As he writes:

Only a few space tourists will be content with a short ride into orbit followed by a uncomfortable stay inside […]

One small puff for a spacecraft, one giant breath for a space hotel

I have been too busy to have too much to say in regards to yesterday’s successful launch of Bigelow Aerospace’s Genesis 1 spacecraft (let’s see how much free time you have when you wake up to 4,500 unread emails.) A couple of good articles on the mission and its potential for orbiting hotels for space […]

Bigelow launch delay

The launch of the first subscale prototype of Bigelow Aerospace’s inflatable habitats is being delayed by about a month. The company announced Tuesday that the launch, which had been scheduled for June 16 (and is still listed as such on the official Roskosmos launch schedule) will be delayed to July 4-14. “This delay is necessary […]

Bigelow retools web site, offers to fly items to space

Michael Belfiore revealed yesterday afternoon that not only was Bigelow Aerospace planning to unveil a new web site, it was going to announce a new service: it will fly photos or other small mementos on its prototype modules it will be launching starting this year. The first Genesis module, scheduled for launch on June 16 […]

Divining clues about Bigelow’s plans

Bigelow Aerospace is not nearly as secretive as it was just a couple of years ago: it now invites journalists to tour its Las Vegas facility where it is working on inflatable module designs, and it’s even revamped its web site. Still, it’s not very forthcoming about its plans, particularly in the near term. We […]

When a little skepticism can be a good thing

The Sunday Times of London offered a brief overview of Bigelow Aerospace and its plans for developing inflatable habitats that could be used for orbital space hotels. There are few, if any, new details about Bigelow’s effort in the article, although it will be gratifying to many that the Times played the story straight, without […]