My body and I have been having a rather more violent argument with each other than usual, so it has been a while since my last entry. I am going to try and ease myself back into writing these little asides on science news with some information about Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace‘s new capsule for taking crews up to the ISS and Bigelow’s planned expandable space station/bouncy castle.
It’s called the CST-100 (Crew Space Transportation) capsule, and it’s going up against the current method of getting to the ISS, the Russian Soyuz (Union) and the manned version of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. Like the Dragon, it can seat up to seven, which is four more than the Soyuz and co-incidentally the same number as the shuttle.
CST-100 interior (Image Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz) Click to enlarge.
From the pictures it does look fairly roomy for a transport capsule, and if you look closely in the window, you can see a little man in a spacesuit. This is only a mockup, so I’m quite sure they’ll find things to fill the space with, and they’ll probably get rid of the little man.
CST-100 with airbags. (Image credit: PDTillman/via Wikipedia). Click for original image/license.
From an engineering point of view, the fact that it performs a dry landing like the Soyuz and the Chinese Shenzhou(Divine Craft) as opposed to the wet landing of the US’s previous capsules is interesting. It uses a parachute to slow it down, then it inflates airbags on its base to cushion the landing. It could work out to a (relatively) soft landing – this capsule is one to watch!
Land of Gregs 