"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...

"Greg \(Strider\) Moore" wrote:


Overall I think inflatables really need to be looked at a lot more.


I generally agree. Does anyone know if any long term exposure studies
have been done on the appropriate (presumably kevlar-like) materials
to see how they stand up to the environment on orbit?


I can't say for sure, but I'd be surprised if the LDEF didn't have some.
There's also the MISSE (Materials International Space Station Experiment).

Reading quickly, it seems atomic Oxygen is one of the bigger issues.

That said, Bigelow still has two of its inflatables Genesis I and II are
still up there.

Genesis I according to wikipedia still seems to have pressure as of 2011.
So that's a good sign.
Seems similar with Genesis II.

So that's a start. I'd have to dig deeper to see how much Bigelow has made
public, but my guess is they're monitoring as much as they can.



[Yeah, I'm being just a little lazy. I'll look for myself in a bit.]



--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net