Space hotel gets a check-up
Inflated craft is holding up, but fate of guests remains uncertain.
Nearly a month after the successful launch and deployment of an inflatable model space hotel (see 'The inflatable space hotel'), the craft is still going strong — but the fate of its residents is as yet unknown.
The spacecraft, a 4-metre-wide watermelon-shaped hostelry called Genesis I, was launched on 12 July by US hotelier and millionaire Robert Bigelow. His company, Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace, aims to use the test-run to develop inflatable space habitats for humans.
But for the meantime, this craft carries four Madagascar hissing cockroaches and roughly 20 Mexican jumping beans. News@nature.com set out to discover what had become of these hapless guests, and take a look at the state of their hotel room.
Discover what we found out here.
Comments
"At 100 millibars — one-tenth of normal atmospheric pressure - the bugs actively pumped air into their abdomens to survive, he found, swelling themselves up in the process to about one and a half times the normal size."
Why on earth (and I mean that literally!) would they have that adaptation?
That's it, I'm finally convinced. Cockroaches are invaders from outer space.
Posted by: Bryan Reed | August 9, 2006 04:43 PM
we had solve the question about spacecraft with the human long times ago.i think it is not difficult for building a space hotel .why they still use the cockroaches to experience?does that condition can let human living?
Posted by: adam rfeynman | August 11, 2006 02:34 PM
We are seeking help with our design and success with our project to put people in Low Earth Orbit.
We are searching for interested people and organizations.
reusable HLV
Posted by: Trevor HM Cooper | November 27, 2006 08:57 PM