INNER TUBES IN OUTER SPACE
How a former Nazi sold America on the idea of inflatable space stations,
In [1951], a series of articles about space travel appeared in Collier’s magazine, which in its day was like a literary Pinterest. [German-American aerospace engineer Wernher] von Braun worked with his old friend Willy Ley, another German space enthusiast, who, while scientifically trained, had turned his energies toward writing. With Ley taking authoring credit, an instalment titled “A Station in Space” described von Braun’s ideas about a space station, supplemented by lavish illustrations by famed space artist Chesley Bonestell. The series was a sensation and provided an optimistic and convincing story of a space exploration future that seemed inevitable.
Central to the article was a wheelshaped space station designed by von Braun but identical in many critical details to [Slovenian rocket engineer Herman] Potocnik’s, though more than twice as big. Von Braun’s station would be 76 metres in diameter, house 80 crewmen, use solar power collectors along the rim, rotate at 3 rpm to produce artificial gravity . . . and be made of rubber.
That’s right. America’s greatest rocket scientist proposed a 76-metre, tripledecked, solar-powered space station, and it would be the equivalent of a giant space-borne inner tube, made of soft, inflatable material, specifically reinforced nylon fabric. This material made sense, because even with von Braun’s ever-larger rockets, and certainly with anything foreseeable in 1951-52, the station would have to be launched in small, light sections and assembled in orbit.
Launching metallic segments of a 76metre wheel in huge, macaroni-shaped sections would have been daunting and expensive, but sending up much smaller and lighter payloads consisting of a folded cloth section of the wheel, which would be inflated and then connected into a complete circle, made more sense.
While von Braun saw a space station as just one component of his larger space exploration infrastructure that would culminate in the Mars Project scenario, he was careful to include a strong science instrumentation package. He was an engineer, yes, but also a scientist, an explorer . . . and a savvy politico.
The Collier’s articles discussed onboard science labs that would contain “powerful telescopes attached to large optical screens, radarscopes and cameras to keep under constant inspection every ocean, continent, country, and city.” Not only would this provide good science and reap benefits fitting the $4-billion (U.S.) investment (von Braun the politician again), but would, via continuous observation in a 1,722-kilometre-high polar orbit, make it “impossible for any nation to hide warlike preparations for any length of time . . .” (von Braun the military pragmatist). The station had something for everyone — especially an American defence establishment nervous about the activities of the Soviet Union.
Von Braun’s expansive prose went further: “Within the next 10 to 15 years, the Earth will have a new companion in the skies.” He continued, speaking of its utility: “A trip to the moon itself will be just a step, as scientists reckon distance in space.” Of additional science: “There will be a space observatory, a small structure some distance away from the main satellite, housing telescopic cameras.” This was to prevent the motion of crewmen walking about his inflatable space station disturbing the sensitive telescope.
In a final note about military utility, von Braun added: “There will also be another possible use for the space station — and a most terrifying one . . .” And he went on to describe its utility for dropping nuclear bombs on enemy cities from space.
He concluded, with some certainty, that “development of the space station is as inevitable as the rising of the sun.” He was not wrong, but it would be decades before that dream would be accomplished, and in forms vastly unlike the 1952 design.
As the 1950s drew on, the Potocnik/von Braun wheel-shaped station permeated popular thought about space stations. The Collier’s articles, countless books for adults and children, and movies like The
Conquest of Space by special effects guru George Pal meant that the design was stamped into the minds of the public. Oh, and there was one more person who might have had something to do with that . . . the inimitable Walt Disney.
A couple of years after the Collier’s articles, von Braun was approached by the Disney organization to work with them on a series of programs for their new TV show Disneyland, later known as The
Wonderful World of Disney. Von Braun and Disney’s director of animation, Ward Kimball, produced three episodes on humanity’s future in space, with the final episode airing in 1957 — the same year that Sputnik launched. This Disney period was perhaps the ultimate rehabilitation of von Braun’s image in the U.S.
There had been much concern over his Second World War affiliations with the V-2 — visions of burning cities and sootfaced, crying orphans (enhanced by the powerful newsreels of the 1940s) were not far in the past, and there were many who disliked the idea of German refugees running America’s rocket program. Von Braun was emblematic of the bunch to most Americans. But his appearances on the Disney TV show, complete with large and beautiful scale models of rockets and the space station, and his charismatic cohosting of the episodes, went a long way toward cleansing public perception of the former SS officer. It also further welded the idea of a future “wheel in space” into the minds of millions. These productions were of the highest calibre and are still compelling to watch.
Other inflatable, wheel-shaped designs were studied well into the 1960s. A few full-sized mock-ups were even made by the contractors who, it was expected, would eventually build such a station. The designs varied widely; some were fatter and smaller, some folded up as a single mass with vertically hinging segments of the wheel’s “rim.” The notion of a centrifugal wheel was still in vogue when Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space
Odyssey premiered in 1968, with its enormous, rigid, twin-wheel space station dominating the poster art and early scenes of the film.
This was the most spectacular version of the “wheel in space” vision, and the last. By this time, the Apollo program followons included a well-planned version of Skylab, which would be constructed from a repurposed Saturn V third stage fitted out as a space station and launched in 1973. It turned out to be a spectacular success, but was a far cry from the large, expensive military stations planned in the 1950s.
Besides cost considerations, there were concerns about the use of inflatable structures in space, and despite much ground testing of scaled-down and fullsized versions, it was impossible to say how they would behave once in orbit until the first unmanned inflatables were sent aloft in the 1960s. Micrometeor impacts were one perceived threat; even a small impact could seriously puncture the structure. But as it turns out, there is far more to fear from the millions of bits of orbital junk launched by the space programs of Earth than from stray bits of rock and sand already in space. Overall, impacts and punctures have turned out to be a smaller risk than thought.
There was also worry expressed about the integrity of the structure from inside. One contractor study discussed the possibility of an overly active astronaut, sans spacesuit, losing his footing and plummeting through the reinforced nylon wall, dooming him to instant death in the vacuum of space and leaving a gaping hole in the station, which would depressurize quickly. While this scenario was extremely unlikely, the contractor was covering all the bases (the hyperactive spaceman would most likely have simply bounced off the hull, perhaps starting a spirited game of “bounce the spaceman off the wall”).
NASA continued to look at inflatable structures throughout the decades, but never deployed anything man-rated in space. The copious research notes were publicly available, however, and a highly driven man named Robert Bigelow became interested and founded a company to explore the potential of inflatable habitats in1999. He has to date invested somewhere between $250-$300 million of his own fortune, made from his ownership of Budget Inns of America. Unsurprisingly, his primary motivation was to create orbiting hotels, but he has also closed the circle by working closely with NASA.
In 2006 and 2007 he paid the Russian space agency to fly two small prototypes into orbit, called Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, and they performed well over two and a half years of testing. In 2016, a Bigelow habitat dubbed BEAM (Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) was flown to the International Space Station by a SpaceX rocket, attached to a station node, and inflated (NASA says “expanded”) for research and evaluation purposes. It’s a smaller unit than his flagship BA330 modules at just 4x3 metres wide (the BA330 will be 15x7 metres), but will provide proof of concept via careful monitoring by the astronauts aboard the ISS. They will not live or work in the module for now, but will simply enter it every few months to evaluate its integrity over time.
The Bigelow expandable modules are a clever expression for the idea of inflatable habitats in orbit, and are being evaluated for use on the moon, Mars, and in interplanetary transit. It took over 60 years for von Braun’s idea of an inflatable, manned structure in space to become a test-item reality, but it appears that the idea is here to stay, and may prove an invaluable addition to opening the space frontier.