FYI,

A bit dated but insightful.

"The Ultimate Public-Private Partnership
- Bigelow, NASA now working together on space hotel"
http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/2004/MERC-Jul-08-Thu-2004/24250261.html

: A mere five years ago, Bigelow, owner of the Budget Suites of
: America hotel chain, announced his intention to get into the space
: race. Not many people paid attention, or gave him much of a chance.
: But 16 months from now, Bigelow's first creation is scheduled for
: blast-off into a low orbit above the earth. If it works as planned,
: the development of space will never be the same.

: Few journalists have been allowed inside the secure confines of the
: 50-acre "space campus" Bigelow Aerospace has built in North Las
: Vegas, and with good reason. Bigelow has long shunned any kind of
: publicity for himself, and since he is investing up to $500 million
: of his personal fortune into the aerospace company, he's reluctant
: to give away too much information to potential competitors.

: "Now, though, it may be time to talk," Bigelow told the
: Mercury. "NASA thinks so too."

: Bigelow's new relationship with NASA represents a stunning
: turnaround since this newspaper first visited the aerospace plant
: almost two years ago. At that time, Bigelow had little good to say
: about NASA. He accused the government's space agency of being an
: impediment to the commercial development of space, and delivered a
: blistering indictment of NASA's many failures. That was then. Now,
: it appears, NASA has taken many of Bigelow's criticisms to heart.

: Bigelow Aerospace has signed three "Space Act Agreements" with
: NASA. These agreements provide for an ongoing exchange of personnel
: and technology, the joint testing of Bigelow projects at NASA
: facilities, and the transfer of NASA patents to Bigelow.

: "NASA has hitched its wagon to us," Bigelow says. "They're here
: every other week now because this is the technology that they will
: depend on in the future."

: The key to Bigelow's success--or failure--is cost. It's always been
: his intention to bring tight-fisted business principles to the
: aerospace industry, and his inflatable habitat technology seems to
: epitomize that approach. Bigelow told us two years ago that if
: he "only" cuts the cost of space habitat in half, he will have
: failed. His inflatable modules need to achieve a quantum leap in
: cost reduction if they are going to make the impact Bigelow fully
: expects.

: "The technology itself isn't that complicated," Bigelow says. "But
: we've had to reinvent the process. Instead of handing out fat
: contracts to all of the usual suspects, the big contractors, we're
: doing this on our own, looking for the best deals we can find. The
: big contractors have been charging NASA 50 times what something
: costs. They did it because they could get away with it. Not us. We
: haven't accepted a dime of government money."

: Bigelow figures he can eventually get the cost of a space trip to a
: far more affordable level, in the $50,000-$100,000 range, which is
: about the cost of a really good car.

: When Bigelow's engineers told him they needed a high-tech valve
: that would serve as a key component of the life support system on
: board the inflatable modules, Bigelow went shopping. American
: aerospace giants were willing to sell him the valve at costs that
: ranged from $300,000 to $1 million. Bigelow found and purchased the
: same valve from a European company. The cost for the identical
: valve? A mere $5,000.

: "This is pretty typical of what's wrong with the American aerospace
: industry and with American companies in general," Bigelow says.
: "Whether it's steel or automobiles or textiles, Americans have
: priced themselves out of the world market. Now our dominance in
: space technology has evaporated as well. We don't have a space
: shuttle or a space plane, and our American launchers are simply not
: affordable for the delivery of any large systems."

: Bigelow was able to purchase a life support system from a German
: company. The complete system cost only $1.3 million. If he had
: purchased the same system from American companies, it would have
: cost in the neighborhood of $100 million, he says.

: Bigelow admits that many people thought he was a bit goofy to pour
: his money into a project that is, to put it mildy, a longshot.
: Bigelow himself figures he has only a 50-50 chance of ever getting
: his money back, let alone of making a profit. But of course, it is
: his money, and since his is not a publicly traded corporation, the
: only stockholder he needs to answer to is Mrs. Bigelow. So far,
: she's on board.

: Sometime later this year or early next year, the lid of secrecy
: over Bigelow Aerospace will be lifted for good. The company plans
: to open up its plant for regular tours by local science students.
: When that happens, local residents will begin to realize that what
: is happening at the space campus in North Las Vegas could end up
: changing human history in ways that we can barely imagine.

Mark Reiff