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Robert Bigelow Plans a Real Estate Empire in Space
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-02/robert-bigelow-plans-a-real-estate-empire-in-space
Robert Bigelow Plans a Real Estate Empire in Space
By Adam Higginbotham
May 02, 2013
Robert Bigelow was no more than 9 years old when he heard his first atom bomb explosion. He was upstairs in his bedroom, in a two-story brick house in Las Vegas. There was a low rumble in the early hours of the morning; a bright flash seared the horizon. “All of a sudden,” Bigelow remembers, “it lights up like daytime.”
<snip>
The atomic tests were Bigelow’s first encounter with the wonders of science. As he grew up in the Las Vegas of the early ’50s—then still a small town—foretastes of the Space Age transfixed him: exotic jet planes screaming overhead from Nellis Air Force Base and stories of UFO sightings recounted by friends and family. At 12, Bigelow decided that his future lay in space travel, despite his limitations. “I hated algebra,” he says. “I knew I was no good at it.” So he resolved to choose a career that would make him rich enough that, one day, he could hire the scientific expertise required to launch his own space program. Until then, he would tell no one—not even his wife—about his ultimate goal. It took more than 40 years.
<snip>
Although he’ll be quite happy to sell habitats outright to his customers, he points out that for NASA—or the agencies of any other newly budget-conscious nations with ambitions beyond earth’s atmosphere—leasing is by far the more affordable option. For only $51.25 million, Bigelow’s sales brochure suggests, a client can travel to the Alpha Station and enjoy dominion over 110 cubic meters for 60 days.
<snip>
Today, the FAA directs all new reports of UFO sightings to another Bigelow-funded organization, Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, of which he is operating manager. Bigelow is unequivocal about the evidence he’s accumulated over the years: He’s convinced of the existence of extraterrestrial life. “I have no doubt,” he says. “Zero doubt.”
<snip>
A cutaway showing the interior of the Olympus habitat, which has a volume more than double that of the International Space Station
Robert Bigelow Plans a Real Estate Empire in Space
By Adam Higginbotham
May 02, 2013
Robert Bigelow was no more than 9 years old when he heard his first atom bomb explosion. He was upstairs in his bedroom, in a two-story brick house in Las Vegas. There was a low rumble in the early hours of the morning; a bright flash seared the horizon. “All of a sudden,” Bigelow remembers, “it lights up like daytime.”
<snip>
The atomic tests were Bigelow’s first encounter with the wonders of science. As he grew up in the Las Vegas of the early ’50s—then still a small town—foretastes of the Space Age transfixed him: exotic jet planes screaming overhead from Nellis Air Force Base and stories of UFO sightings recounted by friends and family. At 12, Bigelow decided that his future lay in space travel, despite his limitations. “I hated algebra,” he says. “I knew I was no good at it.” So he resolved to choose a career that would make him rich enough that, one day, he could hire the scientific expertise required to launch his own space program. Until then, he would tell no one—not even his wife—about his ultimate goal. It took more than 40 years.
<snip>
Although he’ll be quite happy to sell habitats outright to his customers, he points out that for NASA—or the agencies of any other newly budget-conscious nations with ambitions beyond earth’s atmosphere—leasing is by far the more affordable option. For only $51.25 million, Bigelow’s sales brochure suggests, a client can travel to the Alpha Station and enjoy dominion over 110 cubic meters for 60 days.
<snip>
Today, the FAA directs all new reports of UFO sightings to another Bigelow-funded organization, Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, of which he is operating manager. Bigelow is unequivocal about the evidence he’s accumulated over the years: He’s convinced of the existence of extraterrestrial life. “I have no doubt,” he says. “Zero doubt.”
<snip>
A cutaway showing the interior of the Olympus habitat, which has a volume more than double that of the International Space Station
