Posted on 07/21/2006 5:10:16 PM PDT by KevinDavis
On a 50-acre spread in North Las Vegas, near the intersection of Warp Drive and Skywalker Way, the prototypes for future space stations are being built from strips of fortified fabric, supertough inflatable skin and lattices of metal.
Today a gaggle of journalists and space entrepreneurs got a rare look inside Bigelow Aerospace's industrial-park production facility and mission control center, just a week and a day after the company's launch of its Genesis 1 orbital test module. We were treated to three and a half hours of talk and tours, led by billionaire Robert Bigelow and his top engineers.
(Excerpt) Read more at cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com ...
Meanwhile, the feds are stifling entrepreneurial space:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=21352
Senate Report 109-280 Departments of Commerce and Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill 2007
STATUS REPORT
Date Released: Friday, July 14, 2006
Source: Senate Appropriations Committee
"The Committee does not provide any funding in fiscal year 2007 for the Centennial Challenges program. Funding provided in previous fiscal years for this program is sufficient for NASA to run a prize based competition, as well as to verify that NASA will see tangential benefits from running such a program. Providing additional funds to a program based on prizes only creates a pot of unused funds while other aspects of NASA's mission are being cut or delayed due to a lack of funds."
For more information regarding why this decision is outrageous:
http://www.spaceprojects.com/prizes
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