Tuesday 23 April 2013

Bigelow and NASA develop plans for lunar base



NASA announced this week that it is in the initial planning phases with Bigelow Aerospace to build a lunar base. The base will utilize the inflatable module technology Bigelow Aerospace has been developing for space stations. Earlier this year NASA announced they will be using one of Bigelow’s inflatable modules on the space station.
NASA Associate Administrator, David Weaver, told Space Industry News:
As part of our broader commercial space strategy, NASA signed a Space Act Agreement with Bigelow Aerospace to foster ideas about how the private sector can contribute to future human missions… The agency is intensely focused on a bold mission to identify, relocate and explore an asteroid with American astronauts by 2025 — all as we prepare for an even more ambitious human mission to Mars in the 2030s. NASA has no plans for a human mission to the moon.
 Bigelow Moon base
Robert Bigelow (left) and guest with a model of the Lunar base. (Credit: Bigelow Aerospace)
 
Robert Bigelow hopes to get his lunar base on NASA’s agenda. In an interview on Coast to Coast AM, Bigelow said his initial study will take about 100 days, and a second phase about 120 days. The study is funded by Bigelow Aerospace, who has already been conducting preliminary planning for a moon base, but now they are working directly with NASA.
Bigelow is a UFO enthusiast, and also spoke about his involvement in UFO research throughout the years on the Coast to Coast broadcast.



 
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