Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace is an 8-year-old private company that aims to build a commercial, inhabitable complex in space by 2015. Last year, it moved closer to its goal by successfully launching an inflatable 14-foot demonstration craft called Genesis I into orbit by way of a converted Russian ICBM rocket. This summer, it launched Genesis II, another test craft that's roughly the same size as Genesis I but contains more video cameras, sensors and avionics.
Hotel magnate Robert Bigelow, founder of the company, licensed the design of its expandable space modules from NASA. Bigelow has said his company's biggest hurdle will be to find enough rocket launches to run his proposed space hotel.
In a note posted to the company's site this summer, Bigelow said that the company plans to expedite plans to launch its first human habitable spacecraft, the Sundancer, skipping some planned tests. That's because launching another demo mission "would cost two to three times what it has in the past" because of inflation in Russia and a weakened U.S. dollar, he said. "With this decision made, the future of entrepreneurial, private sector-driven space habitats and complexes could be arriving much earlier than any of us had previously anticipated," he said.
Photo by Bigelow Aerospace
