A hard shell that unfolds like oragami will fit in a single Starship payload but expand to over 250k cubic meters of space (which seems impossible, that’s like 10 olympic pools) and offers practical solutions for many of the common engineering challenges with building long-term human habitations in orbit.
Huh, so it’s kind of like an inflatable module, but made of interlocking rigid panels? An interesting concept. I am undecided as to whether the increased volume would be worth the additional complexity.
As long as the complexity doesn’t hurt the durability, it should be fine
It’s cool to see concepts like this, even if I don’t expect anything like it to happen anytime soon.
Another one that comes to mind is ThinkOrbital’s spherical station made from welding together ridid panels like a soccer ball.
It’s apparently a much bigger internal volume than you’d get with today’s inflatable tech. With the caveat, of course, that inflatable tech has been tested already and this has not (though we’ve used origami techniques to expand payloads before, like on the JWST)
I’m here for it
Yes bassmang.
Seem like a good way to get rid of some billionaires.
In many ways, the engineering of a space habitat is a lot easier than a deep-sea submersible…
A space station only needs to keep 1 atmosphere of pressure in, whereas a submarine has to keep hundreds of atmospheres of pressure out.
don’t kill my dreams like that.
Well, don’t lose hope. Rockets still explode in giant fireballs more often than any other form of transportation.
Thanks man., I needed that.
Are you including Formula 1 and similar?
Hmm… Yeah that probably applies to formula 1 as well. We’d have to do the math to know for sure, but a quick Google search says that about 3% of astronauts/cosmonauts have died during a mission. I’d be surprised if the fatality rate for race car drivers is higher than that.
I was under the impression just a cloth type of thing could be vaguely in the vicinity and the airflow would send it to the hole. Its like strong enough to drag things over but not so strong it will tend to rip up the surface or something.
