"The Best of Times, the Worst of Times..."

Robert Bigelow explains his commercial lunar habitat, being readied to undergo a test deployment in the Nevada desert, last May. More recently he's proposed using of the NASA COTS model to explore cislunar space and establish 'extended human activity' on the Moon [Bigelow Aerospace].

Doug Messier
Parabolic Arc

All the promise, perils and contradictions of America’s human spaceflight effort were on display earlier this week in Washington, D.C.

Things were looking good for a day or so, but then the proverbial other shoe dropped to remind everyone of the deep trouble that lies ahead as NASA attempts to restore its human spaceflight capability and send astronauts beyond low Earth orbit.

As NASA struggles to execute a series of ambitious programs on increasingly tight budgets, the main beneficiary appears to be the bumbling, crisis prone Russian space agency Roscosmos, which has reaped a financial windfall as a result of America’s equally bumbling human spaceflight policy. And matters could get worse before they get better (for NASA, at least).

The events of the week played out as follows:

Read the full post, HERE.

Also:
Bigelow urges use of COTS model for cislunar transportation
Jeff Foust, New Space Journal, November 15, 2013