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For SpaceNut ....
We had five topics with "infla" in the title, but none seemed a good fit for this new topic:
Topic Forum Replies Last post
Dream Chaser Orbital Reef New Glen Vulcan Inflatables by Void
Human missions 5 2023-11-23 12:05:24 by SpaceNut
Nasa Inflateable Structures by SpaceNut
Human missions 22 2023-10-31 07:46:55 by Mars_B4_Moon
Inflatable space elevator gets a lift by Tom Kalbfus
Human missions 14 2022-11-07 18:30:10 by tahanson43206
Large Scale Inflatable Greenhouse by Mars_B4_Moon
Life support systems 2 2022-07-14 21:18:24 by SpaceNut
Inflatable towers in Venus by Tom Kalbfus [ 1 2 ]
Human missions 34 2018-09-18 19:02:20 by SpaceNut
Pages:1
This topic is offered to support and encourage a vision by GW Johnson to try to find a way to build his large, dual-habitat, counter-rotating deep space vessel. We have been considering the problem of how to ship components from Earth, and GW suggested using inflatable Components. This idea is brand new in this context, although it is (of course) inspired by the work of Bigelow Aerospace.
This topic is available for NewMars members who would like to help develop this idea. I am hoping we can use images from design software to supplement the flood of words that usually come with posts.
What I'm hoping will happen is that members will imagine how inflatable structures might be incorporated into a gigantic space going vessel or station. Such a vessel or station is ** still ** going to need girders and panels of various kinds, but inflatable structures might provide a shortcut for living spaces and work spaces, in addition to having important safety features in case of an emergency.
We have talent in this forum, but over the years I've been here, no one else has attempted to learn how to use Blender or Fusion 360 or any of the many design packages that are available. Each of them has a steep learning curve, and they require powerful computers. Computers have become more and more powerful with each passing year, but the learning curve and the time needed is a challenge for anyone.
I would be happy to provide encouragement for anyone wanting to venture into Blender or Fusion 360. Both are free, but Fusion 360 requires that the applicant confirm the use is for hobby/student purposes, and the license has to be renewed each year. Once those minor bureaucratic details are taken care of, I think you will find working with Fusion 360 to be rewarding.
What I have in mind is a set of images showing the floor of RobertDyck's large Ship habitat fitted with inflatable cabins on either side of the central walkway. That design would work for GW Johnson's smaller vessel, although fewer cabins would be included.
It might work for kbd512's gigantic 500 passenger deep space transporter as well, but that will be up to kbd512 to determine.
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This post is reserved for an index to what I hope will be a number of interesting and helpful posts by NewMars members.
Index: kbd512 on fiber habitat creep lifetime and related ...
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 63#p229263
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GW Johnson has taken an interest in inflatable modules as components for his Baton deep space exploration vessel design.
I asked Google to see if it could find updates, and it found an article from space.com that covers work being done at Sierra Space in Colorado.
https://www.space.com/expandable-space- … -companies
Sierra Space is working on the Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) habitat and aims to build ever-larger structures. (Image credit: Barbara David)
Shawn Buckley is vice president of Space Destinations and In-Space Infrastructure at Sierra Space in Louisville, Colorado. Formerly, he was a key BEAM architect at Bigelow Aerospace.
Now, at Sierra Space, Buckley and his team are busily at work on the LIFE habitat, blueprinting a product evolution line that could lead to a module offering 5,000 cubic meters (175,000 cubic feet) of volume by expanding to over 70 feet (22 m) in length and 62 feet (19 m) in diameter.
The first product in the Sierra Space roadmap is a large, expandable three-story structure that is 27 feet (over 8 m) in diameter. It can be placed into Earth orbit by a conventional rocket outfitted to house four astronauts, with "spacious" room for science experiments, workout gear, a medical center and a special greenhouse that grows food for explorers on long-duration missions.
"In a little over 2.5 years, we have been able to build and test seven articles, and now going into our eighth. We're moving at a fast rate," Buckley told Space.com. "The technology is really gaining momentum, and we're moving very quickly."
Buckley said that repeat testing is essential. "That is what gives NASA and our customers the confidence. At the end of the day, the more data that we can get the better informed we are," he said.
illustration of a dozen cylindrical white habitats on the surface of the moon
Concept art to reality is being scoped out by Lockheed Martin, foreseeing expandable habitats on the moon. (Image credit: Lockheed Martin)
***
Inflatable habitat structure systems "have a role as one tool in our toolkit for expanding, so to speak, human spaceflight for new markets and missions," said Brent Sherwood, a noted space architect and space domain lead for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His past posts include being a senior vice president of space systems development at Blue Origin."Like all tools, they're best used for a niche purpose," Sherwood told Space.com. Expandable structures may find particular use as "connector elements," he added.
"For example, on the lunar surface, fairly soon we will need physically compliant ways of connecting separate habitat modules," Sherwood said.
"Compliant means accommodating different floor levels — say, from a lander to a pressurized rover — imprecise surface positioning, such as in early base construction, and thermal expansion and contraction due to lunar day/night cycles," Sherwood said.
A little compliance can go a long way to simplifying the overall system architecture, said Sherwood. "So it may be that one of the best uses is comparatively small connector elements rather than the goal of 'making big modules bigger,'" he pointed out.
"Eventually, we will have to learn how to fabricate super-big pressure vessels in space, but we have a lot of market growth and validation to do between now and then," Sherwood concluded.
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Leonard David
Space Insider ColumnistLeonard David is an award-winning space journalist who has been reporting on space activities for more than 50 years. Currently writing as Space.com's Space Insider Columnist among his other projects, Leonard has authored numerous books on space exploration, Mars missions and more, with his latest being "Moon Rush: The New Space Race" published in 2019 by National Geographic. He also wrote "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet" released in 2016 by National Geographic. Leonard has served as a correspondent for SpaceNews, Scientific American and Aerospace America for the AIAA. He has received many awards, including the first Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History in 2015 at the AAS Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium. You can find out Leonard's latest project at his website and on Twitter.
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The focus of this post is the inflatable habitats in development by Sierra Space:
LIFE ®
Volume: 10.6 m3 Length: 2m. Diameter: 3m. Small-Scale Test Article. LIFE 10.Volume: 500 m3 Length: 10m. Diameter: 9m. Fairing: 5m. LIFE 500.
Volume: 1400 m3 Length: 16.2m. Diameter: 11m. Fairing: 7m. LIFE 1400.
LIFE® | Inflatable Space Station - Sierra Space
Sierra Space
https://www.sierraspace.com › Space Stations
Search Labs | AI Overview
Learn more
Sierra Space's LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) habitat has the following specifications:
Size
When fully inflated, LIFE is 27 feet in diameter and three stories tall. It has a volume of 300 cubic meters.
Launch
LIFE launches on a conventional rocket and inflates in orbit. It fits within a five-meter payload fairing.
Materials
LIFE's restraint layer is made of high-strength woven and sewn fabrics, primarily Vectran. Vectran is five times stronger than steel and 10 times stronger than aluminum.
Features
LIFE includes:
A medical center
The Astro Garden system, which can grow fresh produce
Metallic blanking plates that can be used to integrate windows, airlocks, and robotic arms
A Gaseous Trace Contaminant Removal (GTCR) system that removes harmful gases
Burst test
In June 2024, Sierra Space conducted a full-scale burst test on LIFE. The module burst at 77 pounds per square inch (psi), which is 27% higher than NASA's recommendedLIFE ®
Volume: 10.6 m3 Length: 2m. Diameter: 3m. Small-Scale Test Article. LIFE 10.
Volume: 500 m3 Length: 10m. Diameter: 9m. Fairing: 5m. LIFE 500.
Volume: 1400 m3 Length: 16.2m. Diameter: 11m. Fairing: 7m. LIFE 1400.LIFE® | Inflatable Space Station - Sierra Space
Sierra Space
https://www.sierraspace.com › Space Stations
level
LIFE is part of Sierra Space's development of Orbital Reef, a commercial space station that will replace the International Space Station (ISS).
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I feel as though Vectran and similar fibers, while much stronger than steel, also don't have service lives approaching that of steel for this specific application. Any fiber held in tension for an extended period of time needs to be exhaustively tested for "creep" over the same period of time anticipated for its operational use to determine how long the fiber restraint layers can be held in tension by internal atmospheric pressure before the fibers stretch to the point of failure. When I was initially contemplating the use of much lighter fiber-based habitation rings, which would be a boon to the overall feasibility of large ships, this was the major stumbling block I came across. I could not find a valid test indicating how long the fiber would withstand the strain placed upon it. That doesn't mean such testing hasn't been conducted. There were short duration tests of woven fabrics and there were longer duration tests of fiber ropes. In practice, these technical fibers are periodically subjected to high loads, but then the load is removed. That's not how the pressurized cabin of a spacecraft works. Ideally, after launch it's deployed and remains pressurized until disposal. The Bigelow BEAM connected to ISS is the most relevant long duration test article we have to evaluate, but that module did not use Vectran in its restraint layers.
If anyone has conducted long term testing of the fibers in the exact configuration to be used, I would be interested. Please note that Bigelow used Kevlar and similar aramid fibers in the restraint / MMOD protection layers. Vectran (Liquid Crystal Polymer) was only used in the outermost layers to reflect heating from the Sun.
I know that LCPs are subject to UV and atomic Oxygen damage, but to what extent I don't know. I also know that they can operate over cryogenic temperatures up to about 200C with minimal dimensional changes, which is good but not great. Abrasion and impact / shock resistance are both pretty good. Moisture resistance is good, but not great, and this is relevant because water retention from moisture in the cabin will cause the fibers to swell and lose their mechanical properties. This is a "feature" of nearly all polymers except fluoropolymers.
A fire would result in a catastrophic failure of the restraint layers of any hull made from Vectran, Spectra, Kevlar, or similar technical fibers. Fire and flooding are the two events which "sink ships". Very few ships suffer structural failures when made from steel. In the case of a spaceship, it's loss of pressurization rather than flooding, but the same concept applies. I think BNNT and CNT fibers / fabrics are much better choices for fire-resistant restraint layers. CNT, for example, is known for its incredible cut and abrasion resistance. If CNT is used in a normal Oxygen / Nitrogen atmosphere, you still have to get the fiber pretty hot before thermal breakdown occurs. BNNT can withstand blowtorch temperaures.
CNT's tenacity, as a structural fiber, far outstrips Vectran, Spectra, Kevlar. You can bend / twist / stretch them many millions of times, as well as keep the fiber under continuous load, and they don't "give up" (lose tenacity) the way lesser fibers do. The downside is cost. They are much more expensive than Aramid fibers or LCPs. However, they're also much stronger, so a lesser tonnage of material is required to fabricate a hull.
I would specify a CarbonX interior fabric layer for its extreme thermal and electrical resistance, with gas impermeable layers (a CNT or BNNT fiber impregnated polymer, such as Silicone or PTFE), keeping CNT or BNNT fibers out of the "touch area" inside the hull (I'm worried about touching or respiration of these microscopically fine fibers, which could cause mesothelioma), followed by multiple restraint layers of CNT, since it's the lightest / strongest / toughest fiber available, followed by BNNT exterior layers for their ability to reflect sunlight (high quality BNNT fiber is snow white, just like the Vectran outer layers used by Bigelow), and their oxidation resistance against atomic Oxygen.
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Post # 5 is added to the Index for this topic.
This post is inspired by a report by SpaceNews.com
Item in Related:
China quietly tested its first inflatable space module in orbit
This report by Andrew Jones is from November 22, 2024
The module was carried on a rocket separate from the space station.
The module is described by CAST as a multifunctional sealed structure made from flexible composite materials. The mission was deemed a complete success by CAST, a key division of China’s state-owned contractor CASC, which also developed modules for the Tiangong space station.
CAST stated the module is in a compressed, folded state during launch and inflates upon reaching orbit. This design offers advantages such as lightweight construction and high folding efficiency. CAST described the technology as a promising approach for constructing large-scale space-sealed modules and represents an important new direction in sealed module technology.
The company leveraged its expertise in system design, structures, mechanisms, thermal control, and space environment to achieve this breakthrough, according to the statement.
It added that ground-based tests—such as airtightness, debris impact, extreme pressure, vibration, and thermal vacuum tests—were conducted in collaboration with partner organizations to validate the module’s performance.
China has earlier stated its interest in expandable or inflatable modules, but the Nov. 21 release appears to be the first public unveiling of related hardware.
This topic is available for NewMars members to post links about developments in this branch of space technology.
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In an effort to obtain accurate information in order to create 3D Models of various space vessels that would use Sierra Space modules, I filled out the contact form at Sierra Space today. I'll report any response that might arrive.
Thank you for providing this contact service! I am attempting to create a 3D printable model of a space craft intended for deep space exploration. I am interested in using the Sierra Space LiFE modules in the artificial gravity rotating subsystem. By any chance, do you have 3D Printable model designs available for download? It should be possible to protect the designs using Open Source licensing. It would be a bonus for me to be able to show [viewers] that I am using officially approved designs for my designs. *** I'd like to take this opportunity to bring the work of Dr. GW Johnson to your attention. GW Johnson is working on a Baton concept for artificial gravity, and he too is interested in the Sierra Space modules for his design. While I am contacting you as an individual, I am helping to support the newmars.com/forums as a (Junior) moderator. NewMars is an affiliate of the Mars Society. Anything you share with me will be posted on NewMars without editing of any kind. (th) tahanson43206
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