The International Space Station would not be described as particularly roomy—those who have the amazing honor of going up into space are normally put into pretty cramped quarters. However, NASA’s new prototype, a new inflatable habitat, might give our astronauts a bit more elbow room, with a new supply of fresh vegetables to boot.
Created by Bigelow Aerospace, a private company that deals in space technology, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, is currently hooked up to the ISS undergoing reliability testing. During it’s time there, the BEAM is also conducting an unrelated experiment to see how effective growing vegetables and other foods in space would be.
The BEAM is 13-feet long and 11-feet wide, when fully inflated with a supply of compressed nitrogen and oxygen, which form its internal atmosphere. The BEAM also weighs about 70% lighter than a rigid module of similar size, a mere 3,000 pounds. It can be deflated, folded up, and stored into the unpressurized cargo hold of something like a Dragon Capsule for easy transport.
This prototype cost NASA around $17.8 million during the two years it took to develop, but could definitely provide a fast and safe way of expanding the room at the ISS provided it passes all of the tests. Each BEAM is reportedly capable of holding six astronauts, and Bigelow is already working on a bigger version of their inflatable home.
Their second BEAM, called the BA 330, would each offer 330 cubic feet of space, and could conceivably be linked together to form a massive, inflatable orbiting space station in under half the time it took to put up the sturdy ISS.
For now, however, we have to see if their first BEAM is going to pass all of its tests.
Source Gizmodo
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