Al-Reuters has a story about Bigelow Aerospace:

The hotelier-cum-space entrepreneur cites his refusal to spend public money as the single most important factor in keeping his costs relatively low.

"It's substantially important to use private money," he said of space development. "You can't do it on time or on budget on government money."

It might be nice if, in addition to what he's already doing, he or someone else would emulate another hotelier.

The Orteig Prize is a nice idea, but is ultimately based on altruisim, or perhaps a desire to buy fame for money.

Bigelow hopes to make a profit, which is much better IMHO.

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Go back about six months. Didn't I post that a privately funded space hotel was not all that far-fetched, today, especially if the business plan included buying Russian & Ukrainian rockets?

Shuttle derived merged with the IslandOne idea of keeping the ET attached to the hotel offers the possibility of a movie sound stage and zero-gee sports arena once the insides of the ET.

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We need to move beyond "single payer" space programs. As of today, GWB's vision for space remains single payer - - just like Hillary's health plan.

The private sector selling stuff to NASA & DoD is NOT private or "free market" space policy. The private sector buying stuff without taxpayer dollars is private sector space.

Except that would bring national security into play. Would it be unpatriotic for Bigelow to launch his hotel on an upgraded Long March rocket?

Bigelow did sign to buy a Falcon from Elon Musk but he is also negotiating with the Chinese and Russians for launch services.

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_awst_story.jsp?id=news/07054wna.xml

How does one define "spending public money"? He is using a lot of technology developed at considerable government expense. If he had to start from scratch and was not using taxpayer-funded technology, wouldn't this be costing him a lot more?

Probably, but at least he's gettin it with no strings attached (or he's defined the lengths of the strings in advanced, by making a one-time payment).

Buying cheap, no strings, launches from the Russians has been pretty straight forward for some time. CST, to name but one, has been making a business out of it for years.

There are strings attached. It is not clear how the inflatable spacecraft will fall under ITAR restrictions.

How could an inflatable hotel possibly be considered a weapon? I first read about inflatable space structures when LLNL was doing the research, what, maybe 15 years ago? So it's not like it can be considered cutting edge technology.

Or is there some bureaucratic mindset at ITAR that says that if it goes into space it must be a weapon? Or possibly "if we don't understand it, it must be a weapon"?

AndrewS, I think they're refering to any large, massive thing in orbit as a 'weapon'. Since being under the landing site would be detrimental to your health (regardless of whether it is 'crashed', 'targeted', or just 'tumbles' out of position.)

"He is using a lot of technology developed at considerable government expense."

Yeah, largely German technology, at German government expense, based on privately developed technology by Goddard, based on stuff invented by Tsiolkovsky, based on stuff originally invented by the chinese (with some British development along the way.)

I'm not sure it really matters where the technology came from, or even how much it cost. It's not like the US government really invented it.

"I'm not sure it really matters where the technology came from, or even how much it cost. It's not like the US government really invented it."

Er, you're missing my point. The article quotes him claiming that he has been able to keep costs down by not using public funds. But this overlooks the fact that he has an exclusive agreement to use technology that was developed by the US government. It's a matter of accuracy.

There are strings attached. It is not clear how the inflatable spacecraft will fall under ITAR restrictions.

They'd have that problem even if they spent their own money to develop it.

To the best of my recollection, Bigelow is also recieving cash from NASA for several contracts. I'll have to go check on amounts. While the fact that Bigelow (and every other space business out there) is not purely private, in the sense of being funded entirely by the private market and serving purely private customers, may not be optimal, it is hardly the end of the world. Right now the primary customer for space services in the US is the US government; this just reflects that fact. It also shows how NASA does help in the development of private space industry. They might not have great priorities in terms of promoting private space industry, but it is unlikely that there would be as much space industry in the US if they were not there to drum up funding for space in Congress and funnel some of it to private businesses.