The next project will be a lunar base.
All these approaches can be tested and refined at a lunar base.
Many of us then expected a lunar base, even an expedition to Mars, within 30 years.
The B330 could also be used as a lunar base one day, he said.
Since then, there has been only a smattering of research on how to build a lunar base.
"We'll be developing a lunar base," Pearson said, "and the space elevator can be a part of it". Sound crazy?
If so, these areas could become prime locations for establishing a lunar base, since water could be used both to sustain life and to produce fuel.
Nasa, having no current plans of their own for a moon mission, have given their blessing to Bigelow to use similar inflatable modules to build a lunar base.
Transporting crews to and from a lunar base and keeping them supplied will be expensive using NASA's planned Ares family of rockets.
"I wouldn't call it a lunar base," said Dr. Michael B. Duke, who worked at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston at the time.
