"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...

In article ,
says...

There is a new release on this.
seems to me though that they will be keeping it closed off most of the
time
in case of disaster.

"Disaster" is a harsh word that I would not use. If there was any
chance of it experiencing a sudden structural failure, the forces on ISS
would not be pretty. If that were a likely possibility, it wouldn't be
allowed to be attached to ISS at all.

Imagine this "worst case" scenario:

Thanks. Now you've given Bob a whole new thing to go nuts over.

That said, like you, I'm pretty confident that NASA and Bigelow have done
their work.


BEAM "comes undone" where the inflatable part attaches to the "solid
disk" end. The diameter of this looks to be roughly the diameter of a
CBM, whose outside diameter is approximately 80 inches. The area of a
disk 40 inches in radius is pi*r-squared or approximately 5027 square
inches. NASA spec'ed ISS internal pressure as sea level, or 14.7 psi.
So the instantaneous force on ISS caused by the "solid disk" releasing
is surface area times pressure or approximately 74,000 pounds.

In other words, the worst case scenario structural failure of the BEAM
pressure vessel would turn out to be a "very bad day" for ISS.

Jeff

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