Aviation Week has scooped Bigelow on his plans for next week. Bigelow predicts 800 people to orbit in the next ten years. That’s a bold prediction given that there haven’t been 800 people in orbit in the last 50. Where is the demand? What’s the price point? Where is the supply of transportation? If they are using K-1, they will likely get a good price on the order of $17 million/flight which I’m told is only ever quoted for very high frequency long launch program’s like Bigelow’s. I’m guessing K-1 can’t support 3 flights per month since it’s only one ship and 9-day turns seem unreasonable for orbital vehicles. If Bigelow has to cover transportation and the launch cost of his 6 or so heavy launches for all of his outposts, then he has to charge a pretty penny to the visitors.

Who can afford $6 million/month to be on station? Granted, $5 billion would be a bargain for 800 man months in space, but Bigelow still needs to get buyers to step forward who want to station people in space. A factor of five decrease in the price to orbit and a US option might generate 25 rich visitors per year instead of one. The other 55?

I don’t see China scrapping its own tech development path to use commercial. I don’t see India scrapping its own tech development path to use commercial. Western countries don’t seem too keen on astronautics. Maybe one from Poland, one from Hungary, one from Saudi and one from Singapore. Other up and coming countries that have the wealth to spend, but not enough to develop a full rocketry and space station program? Drug companies? If countries with $100 billion GDP don’t want the glory at that price, do the drug companies want the PR with turnover of $10 billion/year?

What Bigelow needs to get countries and companies to fund his vision is lobbyists in the national capitols of 40 countries to set up government astronaut corps and subsidies to national champion businesses to do glorified industrial research in space on the government dime. The case has not yet been made that there is any demand beyond national prestige demand and tourism demand.

The US space program is certainly spending a lot more on Space Station and Moon Mars than Bigelow is spending to achieve substantially more capabilities. It will take a major effort to get the battleship approach to Moon and Mars exploration cancelled in favor of Bigelow modules. If the major aerospace prime contractors figure out that Bigelow offers an alternative to Ares and the lunar habs and landers (and Mars equipment), they will lobby to keep the US government exploration on NASA developed equipment. NASA will abet this.

Bigelow is building a better mousetrap, but is that enough?