FUTURE space tourists may be asked to inflate their hotel on arrival. Well, perhaps 鈥� hopefully their rooms should be fully inflated before they get there.
The US government has given Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas the green light to launch its inflatable space modules into orbit. A prototype called Genesis, about one-third the size of the envisaged final module, is due for lift-off on an unspecified rocket in November 2005.
The US Federal Aviation Administration studied the construction, material, shielding and inflation mechanism of the module during the eight months it took to approve the launch. 鈥淥btaining the approval for Genesis is a first of its kind,鈥� says Mike Gold, company lawyer for Bigelow Aerospace in Washington DC.
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鈥淚f all goes well, the firm plans to launch its first inflatable space station in 2008鈥�
If all goes well, the company plans to launch its first habitable space station, nicknamed Nautilus, in 2008. Its inflatable, multilayered polymer hull will be around 30 centimetres thick and reinforced with Kevlar to provide some protection against micrometeorites and space debris (New 杏吧原创, vol 183, p 20).