Nasa eyes inflatable space lodges for astronauts

Las Vegas, Oct. 17: When astronauts orbit the moon or live on its surface in the decade ahead, they will probably be doing so inside inflatable space lodges now in development.

Dozens of Nasa officials and veteran astronauts are wrapping up a review of five space habitat mockups built by different companies. The mockups offer the US space agency ideas for an ideal Gateway — the planned research outpost in lunar orbit that will house and transfer astronauts to the surface of the moon.

“The whole point is to define what we like and what we don’t like about these different habitats,” Nasa astronaut Mike

NASA officials and veteran astronauts are wrapping up a review of five space habitat mockups built by different companies

Gernhardt, principal investigator for the testing campaign, told Reuters.

He and his team were making a final inspection recently in Las Vegas, Nevada at the headquarters of Bigelow Aerospace, a space habitat company founded by hotel chain billionaire Robert Bigelow.

US vice president Mike Pence in March told Nasa to land its first crew of astronauts on the moon by 2024. That accelerated timeline spawned the space agency’s Artemis program which calls for privately built lunar landers, robotic rovers and Lunar Gateway — a modular space station in orbit around the Moon with living quarters for astronauts, a lab for science and ports for visiting spacecraft.”

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