Another advance for commercial space operations

Today's news feed from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics reports:

"NASA, Bigelow Reach An Agreement On Inflatable Space Habitat.

"Space News (1/8, Leone, Subscription Publication) reports, 'NASA and Bigelow Aerospace have reached an agreement that could pave the way for attaching a Bigelow-built inflatable space habitat to the international space station, a NASA spokesman said.' NASA spokesperson Trent Perrotto said a deal was signed last month, but revealed little else to the publication other than a formal announcement is coming. The article notes 'Bigelow and NASA have been discussing an inflatable addition to the space station for years.'"

Bigelow Aerospace  is the creation of Robert Bigelow, founder of the Budget Suites hotel chain. Like Elon Musk's SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace is privately funded. And it's a small world: SpaceX is Bigelow's exclusive launch provider.  

The inflatable habitat technology was originally developed by NASA. The history of Bigelow in Wikipedia gives an excellent explanation of the design enhancements they've made, and the applications they are targeting. Often it's thought that the goal is space tourism--which is an enduring legend consistent with the fact that the founder is a hotelier. But the goals are much broader, as the NASA-Bigelow agreement shows.

Here's a NASA image of the ISS configuration with the Bigelow inflatable module attached:

As we've said before, New Space is going to be more about companies and less about governments.