Remember back in May when NASA installed thatinflatable roomon the International Space Station ( ISS ) ? Well , they ’ve been performing some tests on it , and things are looking pretty good .
The “ room ” is more formally known as the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module ( BEAM ) . It ’s built by Las Vegas - base private company Bigelow Aerospace , which has its eye on one daylight building inflatable hotel in Earth orbit , perhapsas soon as 2020 . Similar engineering may also be used on missions to Mars , too .
But before all that happens , we need to see to it everything is actually in working order of magnitude . That ’s exactly what NASA has been doing , and they ’ve just harbinger the first performance data from the module .
There are various sensors inside BEAM that are monitor how it arrest with blank , including its temperature and the amount of radioactivity deep down . The temperature was actually found to be a little turn quick than expected , which is not a regretful thing .
The interior of BEAM . NASA
“ A colder - than - expected BEAM would have increased the jeopardy of condensation , ” say Steve Munday , BEAM Manager at NASA ’s Johnson Space Center ( JSC ) in Houston , in astatement . “ BEAM is the first of its kind , so we ’re learning as we go and this data will improve our morphological and thermal models and analyses going onward . ”
The radiation stratum , meanwhile , were find to be the same as the post ’s other module , which is good news if astronaut ever spend a prolonged amount of time in one of these module . Another sensor has been monitor micrometeoroid wallop on the module , but so far there have been none .
Astronauts on the ISS will be entering BEAM about 130 time during its two years on the station , providing valuable information about how inflatable modules deal in space . And , perhaps one day , in the not too distant future , such applied science might become a mainstay of human habitation in outer space .
