Bigelow Aerospace business plans

Derek Lyons wrote:


I call them astronauts because they *are* astronauts, by common
definition


You call them 'astronauts' because of the lingering effects of the
Steely Eyed Missile Man - and because it would spoil your fantasy of a
Glorious Future. We don't call passengers on an aircraft 'airmen', or
passengers on a ocean liner 'seamen'.


But you're right, there's a difference between an operator (who spends
most of his time keeping the facility running) and a visitor (who has a
lot more time to pursue other goals, whatever those might be). Yet
another reason for the Japanese (or Indian, or Brazilian, or whatever)
astronauts to appreciate a commercial facility.


ROTFLMAO.

What's the big deal about calling a passenger an astronaut? You're
making a lot of fuss over a trivial argument on the meaning of words.

You make a boring observation and then laugh your ass off. Reminds me of
Chomko or McCall.

Hop

On 14 Apr, 16:19, Fred J. McCall wrote:
"Alex Terrell" wrote:

:On 14 Apr, 10:17, (Derek Lyons) wrote:
:
: You call them 'astronauts' because of the lingering effects of the
: Steely Eyed Missile Man - and because it would spoil your fantasy of a
: Glorious Future. We don't call passengers on an aircraft 'airmen', or
: passengers on a ocean liner 'seamen'.
:
:
:Bigelow will call them Astronauts because people will pay more to be
:an astronaut than they will to be a passenger, or customer.

You call them 'astronauts' because they fit the definition. I'll
simply note that all the astronauts to date have largely been
'passengers', since the vehicle does virtually all of the work.

Weird - for once I partly agree with you. That said some NASA
passenger will now drive 2,000 miles through the night to kill you for
your words.

Though to be fair, most astronauts are "mission technicians" or
"mission scientists", and highly skilled, or perhaps over-skilled.

Hop David wrote:

:
:You make a boring observation and then laugh your ass off. Reminds me of
:Chomko or McCall.

But that's because you're stupid and undiscerning...

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

On Apr 12, 12:31 pm, Joe Strout wrote:
http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/3722

Pretty neat. $15M for a 4-week stay on orbit; that's quite an
improvement over $20M for a 5-day stay. And $88M/year to lease your own
300-m^3 space station module? That's a real bargain.

In such an environment, I can imagine a lot of smaller countries
developing an astronaut corps that way. NASA will look a bit foolish
when there are twice as many Japanese astronauts on orbit as Americans,
and they're paying a fraction of what we pay for that capability.

The cool thing about this is, even if the schedule slips and the prices
creep a bit (as they are almost certain to do), it's still a starting
point much lower than anything governments have done. And once there
are regular paying customers, prices will continue to come down and
performance will go up, both in the launchers and in the on-orbit
facilities. Bigelow won't long be the only player in that space. And
besides direct competitors, there will be lots of room for support
companies providing on-orbit fuel, power, tug service, and much more.
Real space infrastructure at last!

What's not extremely cool about POOF city at Venus L2(VL2)?

It seems zooming aroud mother Earth is getting somewhat pointless, as
well as having become more lethal by each and every item tossed into
orbit, not to mention the ongoing gamma and Xray dosage contributed by
our nearby moon, and for otherwise having to avoid the outer contour
of that nasty SAA.
-
Brad Guth

In article ,
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

Is that why the FAA calls them Astronauts (and grants them astronaut
wings -- c.f. Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie), too?

If you mean the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA has no
opinion on the matter, and does not grant anyone astronaut wings.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Melvill:
"In a ceremony two hours after landing, Melvill was awarded his
astronaut wings, specifically the FAA Commercial Astronaut badge, the
first wings awarded for a non-government space program and the first for
a spaceplane flight since the X-15 flights of the 1960s."

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut_Badge:
"The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has granted commercial
astronaut wings to private pilots who have performed a successful
spaceflight."

If you were Henry, I think I'd be getting a T-shirt. Or is Wikipedia
wrong in both places?

Best,
- Joe

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:54:27 -0600, in a place far, far away, Joe
Strout made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

In article ,
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

Is that why the FAA calls them Astronauts (and grants them astronaut
wings -- c.f. Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie), too?

If you mean the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA has no
opinion on the matter, and does not grant anyone astronaut wings.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Melvill:
"In a ceremony two hours after landing, Melvill was awarded his
astronaut wings, specifically the FAA Commercial Astronaut badge, the
first wings awarded for a non-government space program and the first for
a spaceplane flight since the X-15 flights of the 1960s."

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut_Badge:
"The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has granted commercial
astronaut wings to private pilots who have performed a successful
spaceflight."

If you were Henry, I think I'd be getting a T-shirt. Or is Wikipedia
wrong in both places?

I think the latter is highly likely.

Let's see (google, google).

Maybe they mean FAI?

http://records.fai.org/astronautics/current.asp?id=13

It doesn't say anything specifically about awarding wings, but that's
the organization that certifies such things. They were present at the
flights to do so, I'm quite confident, as part of the prize rules.

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 12:14:01 GMT, in a place far, far away,
h (Rand Simberg) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:54:27 -0600, in a place far, far away, Joe
Strout made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

In article ,
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

Is that why the FAA calls them Astronauts (and grants them astronaut
wings -- c.f. Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie), too?

If you mean the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA has no
opinion on the matter, and does not grant anyone astronaut wings.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Melvill:
"In a ceremony two hours after landing, Melvill was awarded his
astronaut wings, specifically the FAA Commercial Astronaut badge, the
first wings awarded for a non-government space program and the first for
a spaceplane flight since the X-15 flights of the 1960s."

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut_Badge:
"The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has granted commercial
astronaut wings to private pilots who have performed a successful
spaceflight."

If you were Henry, I think I'd be getting a T-shirt. Or is Wikipedia
wrong in both places?

I think the latter is highly likely.

Let's see (google, google).

Maybe they mean FAI?

http://records.fai.org/astronautics/current.asp?id=13

It doesn't say anything specifically about awarding wings, but that's
the organization that certifies such things. They were present at the
flights to do so, I'm quite confident, as part of the prize rules.

Oops, I take it back. I guess that they have decided to start doing
so.

http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/Archive/2...13-352031.html

"The AST also has begun granting commercial astronaut wings similar to
pilot wings and NASA astronaut wings to the flight crews of commercial
human space flights whose spacecraft reach an altitude of 80.4
kilometers above the Earth.

The first award was made to Mike Melville for his April 8, 2004,
SpaceShipOne flight, the second to Brian Binnie for his October 4,
2004, flight of the same craft."

Interestingly, though, they seem to be adhering to the Air Force
standard of fifty miles, rather than the hundred kilometers that FAI
specifies, and the X-Prize requires, which is why Melville got one for
the earlier flight. Also Wikipedia is wrong when it says (or strongly
implies) that the FAA was doing this in the sixties (those wings would
have presumably been granted by the Air Force or NASA). If they did
it in 2004, it was a first.

Not a full tee shirt. Settle for a tube top? ;-)

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

:On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:54:27 -0600, in a place far, far away, Joe
:Strout made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
:way as to indicate that:
:
:In article ,
: h (Rand Simberg) wrote:
:
: Is that why the FAA calls them Astronauts (and grants them astronaut
: wings -- c.f. Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie), too?
:
: If you mean the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA has no
: opinion on the matter, and does not grant anyone astronaut wings.
:
:From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Melvill:
:"In a ceremony two hours after landing, Melvill was awarded his
:astronaut wings, specifically the FAA Commercial Astronaut badge, the
:first wings awarded for a non-government space program and the first for
:a spaceplane flight since the X-15 flights of the 1960s."
:
:From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut_Badge:
:"The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has granted commercial
:astronaut wings to private pilots who have performed a successful
:spaceflight."
:
:If you were Henry, I think I'd be getting a T-shirt. Or is Wikipedia
:wrong in both places?
:
:I think the latter is highly likely.
:
:Let's see (google, google).
:
:Maybe they mean FAI?
:
:http://records.fai.org/astronautics/current.asp?id=13
:
:It doesn't say anything specifically about awarding wings, but that's
:the organization that certifies such things. They were present at the
:flights to do so, I'm quite confident, as part of the prize rules.

Maybe you should have tried a different (google, google) on the
assumption that it was correct rather than trying to prove it
incorrect? I did a quick google and found things on the FAA web site
about them issuing astronaut wings:

http://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/...fm?newsId=8023

# June 21, 2004 — AST [part of the FAA] awards Mike Melvill the first
commercial astronaut wings for his successful flight of SpaceShipOne.
# October 4, 2004 — The XPrize, an international competition
established to award private industry a $10 million award for
completing two successful commercial human space flights in the span
of two weeks, is awarded to Scaled Composites for its successful
flights of SpaceShipOne. Brian Binnie, the pilot of the vehicle, is
awarded FAA's second set of commercial astronaut wings.


There are numerous others from both faa.gov and state.gov.


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

On Apr 15, 11:56 am, wrote:
On Apr 12, 12:31 pm, Joe Strout wrote:





http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/3722

Pretty neat. $15M for a 4-week stay on orbit; that's quite an
improvement over $20M for a 5-day stay. And $88M/year to lease your own
300-m^3 space station module? That's a real bargain.

In such an environment, I can imagine a lot of smaller countries
developing an astronaut corps that way. NASA will look a bit foolish
when there are twice as many Japanese astronauts on orbit as Americans,
and they're paying a fraction of what we pay for that capability.

The cool thing about this is, even if the schedule slips and the prices
creep a bit (as they are almost certain to do), it's still a starting
point much lower than anything governments have done. And once there
are regular paying customers, prices will continue to come down and
performance will go up, both in the launchers and in the on-orbit
facilities. Bigelow won't long be the only player in that space. And
besides direct competitors, there will be lots of room for support
companies providing on-orbit fuel, power, tug service, and much more.
Real space infrastructure at last!

What's not extremely cool about POOF city at Venus L2(VL2)?

It seems zooming aroud mother Earth is getting somewhat pointless, as
well as having become more lethal by each and every item tossed into
orbit, not to mention the ongoing gamma and Xray dosage contributed by
our nearby moon, and for otherwise having to avoid the outer contour
of that nasty SAA.
-
Brad Guth- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Venus L2 is apparently too cool and otherwise too darn space station
energy efficient for its own good.

What if anything is all that hocus-pocus or otherwise insurmountable
about a Bigelow Aerospace / Nautilus (aka POOF) city at VL2?

We're talking 5 POOFs / 125 tonnes (all China or all Russian?)
-
Brad Guth

You silly folks do realize how cool VL2 is, don't you.

Especially the backside that's facing away from Venus L2 is not likely
offering more than 100 K.

The planet facing side of VL2 is worth perhaps 368 w/m2, plus a little
IR planetshine.

A VL2 POOF city is therefore quite doable, as being well within
Bigelow Aerospace spec.
-
Brad Guth