Advanced Rigid/Inflatable Spacecraft Habitation Module

A large, lightweight, economical, easy-to-manufacture human-habitation module that is well suited to long-term use in outer space has been developed. Modules like this one have potential for commercial applications, including the provision of human habitats for the commercialization of outer space and for shelter against such hostile environments as frigid polar regions, high altitude (airborne or on mountains), and underwater. For government purposes, a module like this one can serve as a "TransHab" (a human-habitation module for transit from the surface of the Earth to low orbit around the Earth), or as a habitation or laboratory module on the International Space Station, the surface of Mars, or the surface of the Moon. Indeed a module like this one could eventually be used as a free-flying laboratory in which to conduct long-duration outer-space research.