Inflatable Space Architecture

Tourists need accommodation, and Las Vegas hotelier Robert Bigelow is aiming to supply it. Adapted from TransHab, a never-used NASA design for an inflatable space station, Bigelow’s Nautilus space station module will provide 330 cubic metres of living space for space tourists or industrial researchers.

The inflatable multilayered polymer hull of the “hab” will be around 30 centimetres thick and will contain layers of Kevlar – as used in bullet-proof vests – to provide some protection against micrometeorites and space debris.Bigelow’s engineers are testing the strength of the sandwich of high-tech fabrics and radiation shielding that will make up Nautilus’s hull by firing high-speed projectiles at it. They are also testing the hab to destruction by over-inflating the modules, with the resulting explosions contained in rigid test cages.

Nautiluses could be flown as independent space stations or connected with a docking mechanism to make bigger hotels. Bigelow sees economies of scale as one of the keys to profitability, and plans to sell space hotels to rivals for $100 million each.

If all goes well with orbital tests of one-third-scale test modules to be launched late next year, Bigelow plans to launch the first habitable Nautilus in 2008, around the time SpaceDev expects the first private orbital flights to be happening.

While Starzyk, for one, does not think commercial orbital vehicles will happen that soon, space flight has always been fuelled by dreamers daring to expect the impossible. Time will tell if they are right. The next question is when will the interactive architects get their chance to add a bit of poetry to these inflatables?

from New Scientist via wmmna

Add comment November 30th, 2005

Sensacell

Here’s a cool little sensor product that uses capacitive sensing technology (the measure of minute electrical changes in elecrical capacity caused by objects moving in the immediate proximity of the sensing electrodes). What that means is that large conductive objects like the human body are easily detected. The sensors can not see through metal or other conductive materials as they block electric fields. The Sensacell can be ordered with or without on-board lighting. What’s nice is that they are modular and can be plugged together to make up larger grids for interactive architecture of differing scales.

Sensacell modules have various operation modes applicable for interactive architecture. In autonomous modes, modules perform actions without any interaction with the outside world, eg. they light up and change state when a sensor is triggered. They can also run in a passive mode updated by an external connection.

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1 comment November 30th, 2005