Mini-inflatable space hotel set to launch

Here's to hoping that things blow up without a problem! (sorry, couldn't resist the pun - good luck guys)

Called Genesis I, it is set to launch from Russia's Dombarovsky missile base in Siberia. If all goes well, it will be blasted into an orbit 550 kilometres above the Earth. Once there, it will inflate to its full size of 3 metres by 2.4 m. If Genesis I is a success, Bigelow will launch a second test craft called Genesis II in the fall of 2006. The company is offering people the chance to send up photos or other objects on Genesis II for a few hundred dollars per item.

Genesis I is one-third the size of a proposed space hotel that is based on an abandoned NASA concept for an inflatable space station called TransHab.

Bigelow hopes to build the 330-cubic-metre space hotel by 2012. But even if that happens, the lack of a low-cost vehicle to ferry people to and from the hotel remains a big obstacle. Bigelow has offered a $50 million prize for the first privately funded launch vehicle that could carry humans to a Bigelow space station.