| With all the new materials it seems that we could | | | | stronger than steel and layered like composites, they |
| make better use of inflatable designs for space, luckily | | | | may even be able to withstand small asteroids. Of |
| NASA and others are looking into this. Not long ago, I | | | | course, to give my acquaintance the proper credit he |
| was discussing this with someone online in an Internet | | | | did add a caveat to his prior statement; "I'm sure it's a |
| style think tank and he had asked me; "Have you seen | | | | bit more thought out then a bouncy castle in the sky. |
| the latest NASA idea, inflatable ships/bases?" | | | | At least I hope it is." |
| "Yes," I said, and "I've been watching Bigelow | | | | Still that is pretty funny, ha ha ha, yes, I can see it |
| Aerospace space exploits closely for many years, | | | | now? Rental bouncy castles for your space party |
| they have the materials needed to do it on a large | | | | vacation - what is privatized space coming too. We all |
| scale. It makes a lot of sense, float-fly it up to the | | | | got a laugh out of that and he'd mentioned that he |
| upper atmosphere and then propel it where you want | | | | was having an interesting dialogue with some MIT |
| it. And yet, he asked another question which I am sure | | | | students in the math program about contemplating the |
| is on everyone's mind; "which if the connotations are | | | | probability and risk factors based on sizes and |
| correct could prove to be susceptible to meteors." | | | | trajectories of asteroids to see if it made sense based |
| Yes, that is a consideration, still, some of these | | | | on the durability of the materials. |
| materials are pretty strong when layered in a | | | | Indeed, this will be a critical decision making factor for |
| composite fashion, and such materials might even be | | | | any lunar colony using such technology, so please |
| used to catch space debris like a net too. Much | | | | consider all this. |