For Space Station, a Pod That Folds Like a Shirt and Inflates Like a Balloon [View all]

[bananas]

Source: New York Times

An inflatable space pod to be attached to the International Space Station in a couple of years will be like no other piece of the station.

Instead of metal, its walls will be made of floppy cloth, making it easier to launch (and then inflate).

NASA said Wednesday that it had signed a $17.8 million contract with Bigelow Aerospace to build the module, which could reach the space station as soon as 2015. That is a bargain-basement price compared with most equipment the United States and other countries send into space, and the Bigelow agreement could serve as a model for how NASA puts together missions at lower costs by using a Kmart strategy: buying off-the-shelf pieces instead of developing its own designs.

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“For pennies on the dollar, NASA will be able to test a technology that could have implications for future exploration,” said Lori Garver, NASA’s deputy administrator. “It represents a new way of doing business.”

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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/science/space/for-nasa-bigelow-aerospaces-balloonlike-module-is-innovative-and-a-bargain-too.html?_r=0