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.

"I'm glad that someone's going to do it, since NASA seems determined to ignore it, despite its many potential advantages."

Rand is very wide of the mark, in his usual zeal to manufacture a NASA vs Commercial Space controversy that doesn't exist. As Alan Boyle states in his article:

"At the time, NASA's Larry Toups had mentioned that the space agency was discussing its options with Bigelow as well as other aerospace companies, such as ILC Dover (which has its own inflatable-module project), Lockheed Martin and the Boeing Co."

Doesn't sound like NASA is determined to ignore anything.

It also occurs to me that this statement is dead wrong too:

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

Bigelow is headquarted in Nevada which is the home state, if I am not mistaken, of the current Senate Majority Leader.

At the time, NASA's Larry Toups had mentioned that the space agency was discussing its options with Bigelow as well as other aerospace companies, such as ILC Dover (which has its own inflatable-module project), Lockheed Martin and the Boeing Co.

Which has nothing to do with L-1, Mark. Read for comprehension.

And the fact that Bigelow is in Nevada doesn't mean much, regardless of who the Majority Leader is. He's not angling for multi-billion dollar NASA contracts.

Clearly Bigelow is looking to NASA as the anchor tenent of its proposed inflatable lunar base and, reading the article, it looks like NASA is interested. A joint venture with Bigelow would pour quite a bit of money into Bigelow, hence the "pork" factor you seem to be ignoring in your blind zeal to whip up controversy.

But there is, after all, a difference between real space entrepeneurs and folks who just like to talk about it on the internet.

Mark, if you want to live in denial about the prime motivating factor in NASA budgets and contracts, there's no point in wasting my time attempting to introduce you to political reality.

"Mark, if you want to live in denial about the prime motivating factor in NASA budgets and contracts, there's no point in wasting my time attempting to introduce you to political reality."

Well, maybe you're right that despite COTS, joint agreements with t/Space, PlanetSpace, and Virgin Galactic, discussions with other outfits like Bigelow, and so on, that NASA is hell bent on crushing commercial space all to asuage the power of pork. But I tend to doubt that, being a skeptic when it comes to conspiracy theories.

NASA is hell bent on crushing commercial space all to asuage the power of pork.

Mark, I wish that you'd comment on what I actually write, rather than what the voices in your head tell you that I write.

The problem with a lot of space advocates is, when they see reports that this company or that company is planning or talking about some cool, new project, like the Bigelow lunar base, in their minds it is as if that project was already finished and just waiting for NASA to make use of it, and incidentally abandoning their own, big government style projects.

But responsible people can't count on the Bigelow (or any other embyronic project) coming the fruition. They can, however, try to be nimble enough to take advantage if and when that happens.

Bigelow (and other real entrepeneurs) are just as aware of this as NASA. That's why the discussions (not ignoring, Rand; there you are very wrong) will continue and, perhaps and hopefully, something will come of it.

...responsible people can't count on the Bigelow (or any other embyronic project) coming the fruition.

But we can count on NASA and its contactors "coming the fruition"? History would indicate that "responsible" people should be very skeptical about that.

That's why the discussions (not ignoring, Rand; there you are very wrong)

Mark, please show me in NASA's architecture plans how they intend to use L-1. Show me the mission trajectories, and delta V calculations that would describe how that location is driving requirements for EDS and LSAM sizing.

In April 2006 I posted a comment at this site:

The Boeing lunar architecture - - PDF file here - - appeals to me in many ways, especially the proposal for extensive use of EML-1. That said, a NASA facility at EML-1 fills a niche I would prefer filled by a privately owned facility. If Boeing chooses to fund their own EML-1 facility NOT managed by NASA or DoD I would cheer, loudly.

Three cheers for Bob Bigelow, who has probably reviewed Boeing's prior work in the topic.

But one minor nit. . .

I now believe EML-2 is actually a better location than EML-1 however stations at both places would seem a simple solution for that.

Building EML stations should NOT be NASA's mission. Buying accomodations at a Bigelow station? Great idea for NASA to do.

Ooh boy, yet another tit-for-tat argument like you guys have been having for years. Maybe we can find Ed Wright to talk about spaceplanes and Bill White to bring in his tinkertoy approach to redesigning space architectures and this would then look like the same kinds of discussions you guys had in 1999.

I have read that NASA has been very very cooperative with sharing data with Bigelow relative to the Transhab patents and similar matters.

But lets go back to that Bigelow image at the top of the MSNBC article. Those sure look like Soyuz to me.

As near as I can make out, Bigelow's stated plans, if accomplished, would get him to a permanent Moon habitat situation at roughly the same time as the NASA lunar return program; ca. 2020 in both cases. There are plenty of intermediate checkpoints to be tracked along both the Bigelow and NASA paths to permanent lunar habitation over the next 13 years. I, for one, am content to wait, watch and see who makes their milestones.

Now then. Anybody have an idea about what Bigelow intends to do with respect to shovel-free transport of regolith? Personally, I'm guessing it's an application of differential electical charges on the station infrastructure and the regolith. Perhaps thin chicken wire-like rolls of charge mesh will be unrolled over a significant area of regolith near the habitat and the charges in adjacent cells of the mesh cycled to cause individual regolith particles to be moved, one small jump at a time, from cell to cell toward the habitat. Anyone have other ideas?

If you guys are done quibbling let't talk about Bigelow's regolith moving solution.

I think he intends to move regolith without physically touching it. He could use an electrostatic charge to propel it forward. The machine would move forward propelling regolith in front of it; kind of like a leaf blower on earth. Maybe the lunar base would have the opposite charge and attract the regolith at the same time. What do you think?

> responsible people can't count on the Bigelow (or any other embyronic
> project) coming the fruition.

This is Mike Griffin's old saw: "Responsible" people can't count on private enterprise to do anything. "Responsible" people must count on government to do everyone.

Does Mark have any evidence that state socialism is more reliable than private enterprise? Or does he simply believe we should take Griffin's word for it?

Another question comes to mind.

For the sake of argument, let's grant the Griffin thesis. The private sector is too unreliable to do anything of importance. Only government is reliable enough to do important work.

That still doesn't explain why Mark thinks everything must be done by NASA. Isn't the Air Force as much a part of the US government as NASA is? The Air Force did manned space flight before, in the X-15 program, so they have the "institutional experience" that Mark says only government has. They even have a Blue Gemini in the Air Force museum.

So, why is the Air Force not allowed to have a lead role in manned spaceflight? Is the military too "irresponsible" to handle important missions, also?

I predict Mark won't answer these questions, either.

> I think he intends to move regolith without physically touching it. He could
> use an electrostatic charge to propel it forward.

No electrostatic magic. Just fabric tubes that are dragged through the regolith to fill them, then dragged over the top of the habitat module.