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Inflatable Space Stations

82 points by bensouthwood

by ChuckMcM

1 subcomments

The Bigelow stuff was very promising and showed that it could work. The larger units on extruded spokes was a viable path to a .5G space station. This would be doable with three (possibly 4) Starship launches[1].
[1] Caveat Starship has to reach its goal of transporting 100 tonnes to LEO

by maxcan

4 subcomments

I never understand why the rotating station concepts seem to all have rigid tethers, either in the form of a central boom or a rigid circular structure. It would seem like you could get a much larger diameter, so less rotational velocity and more comfort, by attaching rigid, or inflatable in this case, structures with a tether. Compressive loads are non existent, you just need to resist tensile loads.
Maybe I'll go ask the AI.

by IAmBroom

0 subcomment

This has been suggested before for a permanent station "on" Venus, floating in its atmosphere.
The atmosphere is caustic, but that's just a design material issue. By maintaining a positive pressure, small punctures would just be a loss to O2 supplies; crew wouldn't need any special safety equipment to patch the holes.
Energy could be obtained via solar, chemical engines, or both. Temperature could be controlled by hovering at a spot near the day/night horizon; since the day sid is too hot and the night side too cold, there exists a Goldilocks region.
Venus is generally closer than Mars, with a weak magnetic field that would help reduce radiation (along with the atmosphere).

by voakbasda

2 subcomments

This is a really nice article that covers the history of space habitats, but it also made me realize that the future of habitable structures has questionable value outside of space tourism.
We have entered an age where humanoid robots are beginning to do many tasks that we thought were exclusively in our domain. At our current pace, I expect they will be able to outperform us in most work settings within a decade or two.
As those robots scale up in their capabilities and numbers, we will send up a fleet of them to space to do the work there. They are far more suited for the environment than humans, and the cost savings would be huge.

by JKCalhoun

3 subcomments

Love the painting of the huge toroidal space station—with the houses and forests inside.
I had a thought experiment: if you could ride a bicycle (motorcycle?) against the direction of spin of the station you would essentially be "stationary". You would still have a velocity into the always-sloping-up wheel. What if you rode up a gentle ramp? Could you break away from the surface of the wheel then and become "weightless"?

by aDyslecticCrow

3 subcomments

I suspect without ISRU production of bulk orbit sheet metal, the most feasible solution is to repurpose rockets in their whole.
Building a station this large is gonna be costly even within the cargo hold of starship. But six of them, gutted of insides as welded end to end could provide the vast majority of the bulk mass.
This assume rather sophisticated orbital welding and object manipulation; but its feasible we could do it with robots.

by hinkley

1 subcomments

One of the problems with space stations is that we can make them longer, or we can pull off pieces and replace them with bigger ones. We don’t have a way to make them larger around.
And the way contact points work, I don’t think we have a way to even inflate a new section around an existing one.

by WalterBright

0 subcomment

A big potential problem for an inflatable tube in space is the stress on the walls increases linearly with the diameter. I.e. the tensile force on the wall would be (diameter * psi)/2.

by hypertexthero

1 subcomments

I just saw a ship that looks like some of those pictures earlier today: The Beckett-Class science vessel in the Cygnus point of interest by the current Elite Dangerous community goal station at HIP 87621.

by cubefox

0 subcomment

I think this should have included the currently most advanced manufacturer of inflatable (though not round/rotating) space modules: Sierra Space.
See e.g. https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/25/24206219/nasa-sierra-spac...

by peteforde

2 subcomments