LaRC Is Looking at Inflatable Modules

Shouldn't that read "Expandable" Volumes?

Lunar surface?

But but, Obama said we've been there already!

Um, isnt this already being/been done by the Bigelow folks?
http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/

Mark

These are smaller than Bigelow's. They may be meant to launch on smaller rockets. Anybody have ideas on the weight/mass?

Just because a private company is working on inflatable structures doesn't mean that they are developing a solution that's suitable for LaRC's purpose.

I'd imagine that this would be an easy bid for Bigelow, and likely they're the expected winning contractors, but NASA is required by law to put out a public solicitation.

Likely this was a planned solicitation under the Lunar surface studies side of VSE. I'd expect that it falls under R&D of new technologies in President Obama's proposed plan.

agree,
lets send it to Phobos with out a crew, but heavily instrumented with radiation medical experiments, may be a monkey or two :) and yes this sounds like a Bigalow space act agreement in the making or I should say turning a space act agreement into a funded space act agreement like COTS

Time to reign in the NASA centers?

This is the bigger secondary structure problem that generally needs solving for both in-space habitats and surface habitats for flexible path-type missions. Having a volume is just the improvement on having the can - now you need to take what was rigid mounting systems in the old cans and build the infrastructure to support all the internal systems, plus provide work surfaces, etc. Those systems need to fold and unfold (or be deployed) in ways compatible with the inflation of the habitat.

After that, you then need the game-changing techs to use that volume efficiently (comms, life support, computing systems and interfaces) that can also be placed inside the inflatable package, hopefully before inflation.

It was R&D tech like this that had ground to a halt during POR, but which is essential for real, continued, sustainable, exploration.

What does anyone make of the "proprietary" marking in Figure 2? Looks like some contractors' marking, not a government marking.

It's a difficult technology to design if you don't know the method from which it will be deployed. That is what will decide how big this thing is and where we can use it.
I think that is why hlv took center stage when funding was short.