Re: TransHab as storm shelter

From: Josh Gigantino (gigantin_at_shore.net)
Date: 06/15/04 

Date: 14 Jun 2004 20:48:05 -0700

marsbeyond@yahoo.com (Tony Rusi) wrote in message news:<889ef2b7.0405281425.17a3930a@posting.google.com>...
> A group of engineers including David Cavalieri were granted a patent
> on this very idea a few years ago. That patent is owned by Bigelow
> Aerospace. Anthony Zupperro had an idea for a PBO bag that would be a
> nuclear powered steam rocket "ice ship" even earlier. The existence of
> prior art and the previously mentioned problems, (That much water is
> heavy and it won't stop all cosmic rays) is all true, making the value
> of the patent very dubious indeed.

Excellent! Thanks for the info, I've been looking over the Bigelow
patents on uspto.gov. Some of the proposals are very interesting,
including an inflatable hab that is mounted asymetrically from it's
solid core, leaving a large open space for building out.

> NASA had a very small storm shelter baselined inside the transhab for
> use during the infrequent and unpredictable solar proton storms from
> the sun for long duration missions like the 9 month chemical rocket
> transit from earth to mars.

I was describing a more medium-sized one, from Henry's response it
sounds like the water-shielding would only be useful for HEEO orbits -
storm shelters would be used everywhere else.

Josh