Alan Boyle has a fascinating exclusive interview with Bob Bigelow, who seems to be planning to homestead EML-1 privately. I’m glad that someone’s going to do it, since NASA seems determined to ignore it, despite its many potential advantages. He seems primarily interested in it as an assembly point for building a lunar base that can then be dropped to the surface in one piece, avoiding lunar surface assembly issues. But I suspect that once he starts doing it, there will probably be permanent infrastructure there as well.

[Update at 10:30 AM EST]

In the face of continuing progress in the private sector such as described above, Clark Lindsey once again questions NASA’s priorities.

The answer, of course, comes down to pork. Bigelow won’t provide/maintain jobs in the right congressional districts.