NASA’s first inflatable space habitat falls flat – but they’ll try again on Frid

[Unorthodox]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/05/26/watch-live-astronauts-inflate-the-first-expandable-space-habitat/

Around 6:00 am eastern on Thursday, astronauts started the process of inflating the very latest in space architecture: The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), an inflatable habitat that can be snapped onto the International Space Station to expand it. It's the first inflatable structure designed to protect human life in space.

But don't worry, you didn't miss the show – they've put things on pause, and you can watch them try again live on Friday morning. The habitat failed to expand as expected, and after two and a half hours of numerous delays NASA mission control told astronauts to resume their regular schedules. In addition to two hours of daily exercise, meals, and plenty of sleep, astronauts are expected to follow an intense schedule of scientific experiments and spacecraft repairs down to the minute.

The habitat was designed by Bigelow Aerospace. NASA paid the company $17.8 million to test it at the space station. The benefit of these inflatable modules is that they take up less space on transport vehicles. That would make them especially appealing for missions to Mars, when astronauts would have to spend about six months on a spaceship for each leg of the journey and would likely live on Mars for over a year to wait for our planets to realign for the shortest possible flight. If these inflatables prove well-suited for space, engineers can start fine-tuning them to serve as habitats on Mars.

The module (about the size of a large camping tent when it's inflated) could provide some valuable wiggle room on the cramped space station – though for now, NASA reports that astronauts will spend just a few hours at a time inside while collecting data on its performance. Scientists will have to confirm that BEAM does about as well protecting astronauts from radiation and space debris as the rest of the space station does. The current plan is to jettison the room into space when a two-year testing period has been completed.

[DrazharLn]

My understanding is that it's the saved mass, more than saved space that makes the inflatables attractive. The BEAM people did an AMA on reddit earlier, btw: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/4kvf0i/nasa_ama_we_are_expanding_the_first_humanrated/