Inflatable Station
Goodyear helped design this space station concept in 1961. After launch, it would have inflated like a giant rubber wheel, providing pressurized compartments for living and working in space.
Inflatable space stations, which can be compressed and folded before launch, are useful because size and weight are often the limiting factor in bringing anything to space. A 27-foot-diameter inflatable module called Transhab (.pdf) was proposed to fly on the International Space Station in the 1990s. Transhab’s foot-thick shell would have been made in part from woven Kevlar and could have protected astronauts against micrometeorites and the vacuum of space.
The module was never flown but a private company, Bigelow Aerospace, has taken up the design, launching two stations into orbit, Genesis I and II. The company currently has plans to launch a larger inflatable station, called BA 330, sometime in 2014 or 2015.
