March 17, 2007: Space Ventures and the Paranormal - Robert Bigelow

From the high desert and the great Americans, South West, I bid you all good evening, good

morning, good afternoon, wherever you may be in the world's time zones, prolific as they

are in each and every one of them covered by this program, Coast to Coast AM. I'm Art

Bell. It is my honor and privilege to be escorting you through this weekend a good one it

shall be this night. And I've got so much to say about this.

Bigelow is going to be here. Mr. I'm going to put a hotel in space and he's not kidding.

In fact, he's got one satellite up now. The other is either launched or about to be launched.

This guy's real serious and to prove it, you might want to peruse some of the photographs that

I've got up there. They just went up on the website just before airtime. Now this is the visit

that Aaron and I made to Bigelow Aerospace. And I held most of the photographs back.

And that Bob would probably do well to go up there and peruse them himself. I'm sure he's not

seen them. So they're going to be a surprise for him as well. A lot of his equipment is pictured.

It's absolutely fascinating stuff. So you might want to get up to the website and

peruse that ahead of the interview, which I'm going to begin at about 15 after the hour.

This hour. Just a couple of things that I want to get out of the way.

As you know, last weekend I was in Los Angeles. And I received an award, a very great honor.

It was indeed from radio and records. And I will not burden you with any thank yous here.

They came in a little speech that I made thanking them. And that too is on the website. You can hear

it. So that was kind of cool. We did get to go to Disneyland after that affair. And that was way

cool. We got, if you haven't seen the California experience or the California, whatever it is,

the IMAX presentation, oh my god, you've got to see it. It's just nothing short of incredible.

All right. For those of you who have listened to the program for years,

you're going to know what I'm about to say. For some of the rest of you, you won't. So let me tell you

a little story. Years ago, Ramona and I went to Paris. Actually, we loved Paris. It was one of our

favorite places. And we were there any number of times. But on this occasion, we were on the far

outskirts of Paris. And we went into a little Italian restaurant run by an Italian guy. This is

now a decade ago. I guess it's a decade ago, but a part of a decade ago. And we ordered a cheese

pizza. We were hungry. And he brought out this incredible sauce that he had made of about 16 herbs.

And anyway, it was just unbelievably good. It took this pizza. And it made it, it made it magic.

And Ramona was very good at this kind of thing. So she sat at the table and deciphered

what these herbs were. She was just very good at that. And we came back to the US and she put

together what we now call, and 10 years ago, eight years ago, whatever it was, I told you about it.

It was to be called pizza punch. Well, guess what? After all of these years, let me add a little

more. We produced right here at the house some pizza punch. And we decided we would test

market it. So we took it down. We took it down to a local pizza parlor. And they offered it to

their customers who went berserk over it. And they couldn't get enough of it. And we couldn't

supply enough of it. It was crazy. And just people went berserk over it was so good. And

so I was contacted by a man a few years ago now who said, look, we might be able to make this

pizza punch. And long time listeners know, this is kind of been in the works for years.

Well, finally tonight, if you would like to try pizza punch, you can do it. There's now a

website up. It's called Art Bells Pizza Punch dot com. That's A R T B E L L S

Pizza Punch, P I Z Z A P Y and C H all strung together. Art Bells Pizza Punch dot com.

And you can order some and give it a try. It is amazing stuff. Absolutely amazing.

In fact, the whole story of pizza punch is really up there on the website. You can read about

the history of it, how we found it, how we developed it and all the rest of it.

So it's now called Art Bells Pizza Punch, but it ought to be Art and Ramona Bells Pizza Punch.

I guess my name being the one they used it anyway. There you've got it. And a certain

amount of the proceeds, if they're turned out to be any, will go to the asthma foundation directly.

So there you've got it, Pizza Punch. People have been bugging me for years and years and years and

years about this. So if you want to give it a try, you can locate it at Art Bells Pizza Punch dot

com. And I really, really, really would like your input on this. It was kind of a love of hours

and very carefully and lovingly developed. And I never thought that I would have a food product.

And in a sense, I guess I don't. It's just there. If you want to give it a try, if you are curious

after all these years, if you're curious about a new product, something really cool, this is it.

Art Bells Pizza Punch dot com. ART, B-E-L-L-S-P-I-Z-Z-A-P-U-N-C-H and punch it does to dot com.

So there you have it. It'll be available. It's actually, I think even if you ordered it now,

you couldn't get it until April, April 1st, is it? I don't know if that'd be a good date.

Yep, April 1st. Ships, April 1st. It's not a joke, though. That's for sure. All right.

Beyond that, there is a photograph right now on the website.

Under Art Bells Webcam. And if you want to take a look at that, you're welcome to.

I caught Aaron and our other little immigrant, our little Manila Kitty, both asleep on the couch,

bringing at women do a lot of that, sleeping. And I thought it was so cute, and so I snapped a

photograph, and that is it. So there's a lot of stuff on the website to take a look at tonight,

including, of course, that photograph I just mentioned. And all of these photographs

of the Bigelow Aerospace Facility, I mean, we really got in and got to look at everything.

The only thing not included in that array of photographs is an actual picture of the satellite,

the second satellite itself, which was totally proprietary.

It looks like someone's telling me the web server crashed on Pete's. Well, that only took

about a minute. All I can tell you is, it's already down. Got about five people on there saying

it's already down. Sorry. The people who run that website, I'm sure, will do their very best to

get it back up again. So just write it down and try later or tomorrow or something. People have

been waiting years for that. So I knew it was going to get hit hard. I didn't know it would only

last seconds. Just write it down at bellspeedspunch.com. Okay. In a moment, Robert Bigelow graduated from

Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration.

In 1999, he founded Bigelow Aerospace. Bigelow Aerospace is a general contracting investment,

research and development company that concentrates on achieving economic breakthroughs in the costs

associated with design, development, construction of habitable space stations, space transportation

and launch facilities to the extent that they will be affordable for private enterprise use.

Robert Bigelow is active and a member of in various business and scientific community

organizations. He is a member of UNLV Foundation and an associate member of the Society for Scientific

Exploration. He is my HR Hadley. He's a billionaire who decided at his late age, or I should say

our late age, we're nearly the same age, to take all this money. He had a mass in private industry

and go to space. Now, who in the world does that? I think it was Mr. Bigelow who told me

aerospace is a business that will very quickly turn billionaires into millionaires and then less.

But that's what he's doing, hopefully not getting turned into a millionaire or less, but certainly

going to space. In fact, he's already there. So he's not a man who just talks. He's a doer.

And if you doubt it after seeing these photographs, well, then just stay by your radio. Turn the volume

up a little bit because what you're about to hear will blow your mind in a moment, Bob Bigelow.

Well, all right. Again, I would like to emphasize the man you're about to hear is not just a talker.

He's a doer. He he's already sent one satellite into space if not two. And if the second

hasn't gone, it's about to go. And he's got little creatures, bugs and that sort of thing that he's

doing environmental testing with by all means make it up to coast to coastam.com and look at the

photographs that I took of his facility. It's quite a facility. Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas.

And I haven't released these in patanny buddy until tonight until this very moment, actually.

And I guess Bob will get a chance to see them. He can probably sit where he is and peruse

photographs because they literally just went up at airtime. So, ladies and gentlemen, if we're

ready, here is Bob Bigelow. Bob, welcome to the program. Hey, Eric. Thank you. Thank you very

much. Good evening. Great to have you. Hey, have you had a chance to go to the website? You know,

I'm sitting in a room that's not where my computer is. It's in a different area.

Okay. But I generally remember the photos that you took, the positions that you were in. And so,

I kind of remember them. They're very, very good photographs that we'll sort of go through.

Incidentally, we figured a way out to kind of expose the G2, the Genesis 2 spacecraft.

And it's still compliant with the restraints of ITAR, you know? Okay. Stop, stop, stop. Tell

everybody what ITAR is. Well, ITAR is a rather ominous agency regulatory feature of the

Department of State. And it's intent is to protect this country from the export of information

that could have derogatory effects. And so, in its scope and sweep of implementation,

it covers a multitude of things, some of which probably should not need to be covered. And so,

we have to be very cognizant of anything that we expose on the website or other ways that we

don't reveal something that could be objectionable. What is ITAR? What is ITAR? What is the acronym?

It stands for the, it's the international treaty on arms and munitions in regulations.

Wow. And so, what we've done is kind of tricked out the, what we did, we photographed the

spacecraft by turning all the lights off in the room when we started there. So, we turned all

the lights off and then we created various kind of lighting enhancements that were kind of obscure.

And then we took and we overlaid a fog over the, over the pictures so that you kind of see this,

this outline in the shape and some things bleeding through and some kind of instrumentation and it,

and it looks kind of cool actually. Okay. So, what I'm going to do is find a way to get those

photographs to you as soon as I can. And I think you'll like them. All right. Let's update where

things are. You launched your first spacecraft when? July the 12th last year.

July the 12th last year. And you, you had some biologics on the spacecraft and you had a lot of,

I guess you had cameras, you had communications gear, your private citizen putting a space

craft in orbit and in orbit it still is, right? Oh, definitely. It'll be there for some forecasts are

as long as 13 years and probably no less than 10 years depending upon solar flare activity.

Wow. Now, you've got a second spacecraft which I had the privilege to actually see in person

when I was at Bigelow Aerospace and it was going to be launched and I don't know whether you can

discuss the current status of it or not. Can you? Yes, I think we can. I think we can. Where are we?

We are looking, expecting a launch the week of the 19th and out of Russia, of course.

We have been told initially that we were expecting a launch on the 30th of January and that got

bumped because of events that took place. After subsequent to our launch last year in July,

they had a failure of another launch carrying other satellites. Okay. And that's a big deal.

And so it dominoed on us and the result of it was that everything slid north,

scheduled wise and so our schedule got bumped from the 30th of January to we were told later

than we were told that the 1st of April was the expected date they're about and now we have

confirmation that that is going to occur definitely in the week of the 19th. So that is our,

in fact, we're we're shipping a spacecraft out very soon because we have to be there about

a month or so or maybe five weeks or four or five weeks of ahead of the actual launch date.

If you would articulate the difference between the first spacecraft and this one, what would

the high points be? Well, the high points are that this is a sister spacecraft in terms

of its size is virtually identically the same. But what we've done is significantly altered the

payloads and we're flying a number of things that a genesis one is not flying and we're flying

reaction wheels. We're flying multiple gas tanks, air tanks that are manifolded. We're flying

almost twice as many cameras. We're flying of course the flyer stuff program for folks,

which is kind of a fun thing that we're doing. It's not necessarily tied into the mission of

a spacecraft. We're flying a suite of avionics that are significantly enhanced over what G1 had

in terms of redundancy and other kinds of we're trying other people's products out. So these are,

you know, these are test bed, pathfinder spacecrafts and all of them are intended to try to validate

various kinds of hardware, various approaches from everything to fabricating different hardware

and assembling and integrating it all together to various companies, systems and so you know,

where each one is a gamble. Each one is a situation where it's not only the launch itself that we

keep our fingers crossed over, but it's actually the performance of all kinds of stuff on each spacecraft.

The average American citizen thinks I believe that, you know, if somebody like yourself, a private

individual, private citizen, decides to invest a lot of money and put something in space, then it's

only your business. But that's just not true. Is it ITAR is there? You are watched over by our

government, probably other governments, everybody in sight watches over you, don't they?

Well, yeah, and you know what, I think the way to express this level of intensity, you know, we

all, God knows, technology is a huge grunt and to say the least, we're always on pins and needles

as to what technological apparatus actually works or fails. But if you're looking at the hierarchy

of sharks that can bite you, that can really hurt you in this business, I look at it this way. I

put technology as kind of the foundation. It's the lower level, very, very serious, but not quite as

serious as some of the next things. And I think the next thing is money. You know, if you have enough

money, you can pretty much buy a lot of different kinds of technology and eventually get what you want.

Above that, I think it's management. Because if you screw up the management of your money,

then it really doesn't make much difference. If you can't appropriate it right or even if you don't

have enough of it, then you're in serious trouble. So management is crucial. And we know some examples

where poor management of money sometimes hasn't resulted in much benefit. But above that, you're

getting into an area now that's the most lethal. That is politics. And there probably isn't anything

that's worse because you have no control over that subject. You know, you're at the mercy of a lot

of people that just flat don't care. And you're actually putting them, making them go to some trouble

that maybe they'd rather not have to go through. And so politics to us is a big friggin deal.

It is no small nightmare that we have to deal with. We have a fantastic Washington office and they

devote 90% of their time to this ice, itar, subject, you know, trying to get our satisfy the

Department of State and other agencies. And it's a big deal. Well, you know, it shouldn't be a big

deal. Now, obviously, we don't want to give away priceless technology to enemies. There is that.

But that issue aside, it seems to me that that could be handled well, all right, there's some

music hold tight, Bob. Okay. It seems to me that itar could be handled in a sensible

non-political way. But as one, I guess we all know, the world is not non-political. The world

is nothing but politics. And so we'll talk about that tonight. We'll talk about how hard it is for

private citizen to endeavor to do what NASA has done and perhaps more. Here I am. My guest is

Bob Bigelow, my HR head and he's launching spacecraft number two is going up next month,

week of the 19th. Now, all of this is not just to launch spacecraft. This is all headed toward a

goal. And that goal is a hotel in space, ultimately a hotel in space. And if you want to see how it's

going to go together, if you want to see how the modules are configured, go to the website,

coastgoastam.com. Aaron and I went to Bigelow Aerospace. We got to take pictures of modules,

habitable, ultimately habitable modules. Modules that may well take you in your lifetime

to space. Can you imagine that? Think about that. You certainly are children, but you. This is

a hour lifetime kind of thing. This is a 2012 kind of thing when we're talking about getting some

of you to space. We'll be right back. So in other words, if you were a private citizen and you

wanted to put a spacecraft in orbit, ultimately a hotel in orbit, you'd be concerned about

technology, of course, and money and then the management of money. But more than any of those,

you'd be concerned about politics. Bob, is there any way? And this is something we talked about

this when I was there, that the audience can help you out. Is there any way to cut through some

of the red tape? Because in a moment, I'm going to have you describe what NASA is doing and the gap

that we're facing in terms of our capability to get things into space. And that's going to shock a

lot of you. And you're going to know then that we need the Bob Bigelows of the world. So Bob,

is there anything the audience politically can do to help your case out? You know, since you

asked me that question, Art, I've been pondering that and I wish that I had a positive solution.

And say, oh, yes. Only if we just did this one thing. But it's really, as we'll find out here

in this discussion tonight, it's so entwined and kind of a self-choking situation that

there isn't any one simple solution necessarily. And it's the political aspects of space really are

part of the kind of, it's what really induces part of the problems that NASA is having today even.

And so even NASA is hamstrung by politics that completely surrounds this subject.

Who on space? Who owns space? Yes. Does anybody own space? Does anybody own the moon? Does anybody own

Mars? That answer changes according to the geography that is the target. If you're talking about,

you know, there are air rights over real estate, over land. And each country has a different,

each sovereign country can dictate more or less where its air rights stop. And that changes

from country to country. And when you go talk about the moon and other celestial bodies,

you encounter the 67 moon tree. And which the United States is a part. And you know, that's a piece

of a treaty that has constrictions as to who can do what. And, you know, so then that's actually

something that's in debate as to whether or not it's even valid. And that's quite a complex.

What are the basics of it? I mean, what does it say? What can we and can't we do? I don't need all

the details, but I mean the big picture. Well, it was passed in 67. A lot of countries were

not part of that. And so at that point in time, it was anticipating that there was a mad lunar

rush. And so the treaty wound up dictating that it was to be used for the general good of mankind.

And essentially, you could put a base on the moon. You could operate it like the myrto

in the Antarctic, but you couldn't really you could never use it for military purposes,

which is a good thing. And you also would be if you were to put any kind of business enterprise

affiliated with the moon, it would fail because it would be required that that enterprise

be sort of a charitable kind of operation. It would be something that would be for the good of

mankind, essentially, but the language really is vague. And so there's ambiguity as to what the

private sector might be able to do versus the sovereign countries. And there's a lot of

countries that never agreed to anything because they never signed the treaty.

Okay, let's say the Chinese got into space and they are getting into space, Bob. And they flew

to Mars somehow. They got to Mars and planted a Chinese flag on the red soil. Right.

What would that mean? Oh, that'd be great because we would all go out there and kick ass to try

to beat them. Yeah, well, that's true. So the moment we knew they were going to even try it,

I that's right. That's right. We'd have money to go back to space. I would love to see that.

You'd love to see. I absolutely would love to see it.

Your your facility is astounding. And again, folks, if you want to see what the facility looks like

part of it anyway, I took pictures of as much as I was allowed to. He's got that, for example,

that giant machine, Bob, can you explain about that? It's a big orange monster.

Yeah, that's a that's a special CNC machine that is a computerized machine that can handle a

14 foot square billet that might weigh thousands and thousands of pounds because it could be

10 or 12 inches thick. And it's just the kind of thing that we use to make full scale bulkheads

because you as I tell you guys, we're really good at taking nice size large pieces of aluminum

and winding up for the whole lot of shavings over here. But seriously, that's what the

purpose is is you make a one piece unibody construction of an ice agrid billet for or an ice

agrid bulkhead out of that billet. Okay. Further on, we've got a lot of pictures of the

of your control room. And this is an area where you you have controllers sitting at consoles,

we didn't happen to catch them at the consoles at that point, but they monitor and communicate

with the spacecraft. Is that correct? That's true. You probably scared them aren't. That's they

were probably in hiding because, sorry, anyway. But that's true. They they are there. And we now

capture we have three stations scattered in the one that you saw. And and then we have

receiving and sending stations in Alaska and Hawaii. So we will be with with genesis two flying,

we will be in constant communication five hours a day. Five hours a day. And so the more stations

you have around the globe, the more communications you have, obviously. Yeah, and that's crucial. We're

looking to try to have maybe a couple of dozen eventually about 24 stations, but but I we're at

least anticipating adding two as a minimum per year, maybe three per year between now and O10.

And O10, you know, is is a date in which we intend to launch Sundancer, which is intended to be an

occupiable module. And by that time, we should have any order of perhaps 10, 10 stations at least.

And that's not too bad. You know, we'll bet it all. Yeah. Yeah. We'll be in fair communication.

All right. Now, further on, photos 15, 16 will give people some idea of the interior of what

ultimately is going to go up there and and turn into and and we should talk about this a little

bit. I don't know what it's going to turn into. Is it going to turn into I suppose at first

big-a-low astronauts will be occupying this immense amount of space. And it's a lot of space.

In fact, as you go down the photographs, 18, 19, 20, take a look, 21, the outside of these modules,

these will be these are pressurized modules that Bob has built and will be building mock-ups of

them here. And they're big. They're going to be big enough to ultimately be hotel and space.

Aren't they Bob? Well, let me let me back up this a little bit and and give some credit here

to NASA and then we'll go on forward to the use and the structures and and like that. We acquired

I actually was introduced to this expandable technology through started off being a magazine

article. And I was astounded to learn that NASA had created this kind of technology and of course

with the infant by the incident wisdom of Congress their program was cut. This is part of the

politics problem we're talking about, right? So they lost their funding. And through some phone calls

I made and one thing led to another I come to find out the program was not being pursued. So we

started pursuing it and and then eventually we acquired licenses to their patents and we acquired

patents of our own. And so the essentially what you have is an expandable system that provides

in our particular scale of things about three times the interior volume of any module that's

flying on the international space station right now. Good lord. So that's a good thing because

these every launch is very expensive. So at any time that you could triple the value, the volume

of space you kind of triple the value sort of speak of the of the module itself and on per launch.

So you're putting that each launch to very good use. And so that's part of the value of these

systems is the volume that they that they can carry. The other value is the safety. Because of

the shielding involved and also because of the designs for our radiation protection these systems

are safer to be inside than the conventional construction of aluminum solid aluminum structure

is. Okay. Is it reasonable for you to explain the difference or are we getting into guarded?

Oh no. No, we can't. We can do that in fairly kind of you know general terms. I can't name names

of materials and things like that. Okay. We can in general terms because there's all already

quite a bit of out in the literature on this. Okay. How much safer? Well years ago we did some

hyper what they call the ballistic tests are called hyper velocity impact tests and we did this

on we performed these tests on some old shields shield architecture and these tests showed that

the projectiles that we shot into our own shields sustained the impacts very well and just obliterated

the targets that we that we use that were exact mockups of the strongest insulated and

and mechanically prepared portions of the hull of of the modules the best constructed modules

on the ISS and just obliterated in fact it didn't punch a hole in it it actually unzipped these

pieces to where it fractured them so badly we we thought well if it had this had been a real

incident it might have gone from bulkhead to bulkhead that penetration was so violent but in our

shields it didn't it didn't actually the targets so from that that standpoint were you know and

NASA knows this this is in fact the original intent for these structures by NASA was to use

them as a dormitory for the for the ISS and for deep space missions deep space missions going to

Mars that was the whole point you know so this isn't some concoction of ours that we said oh gee

you know we laid awake one night and just jumped us up no this was this was the the guy that was

the principal fellow on the team was Dr. Bill Schneider in fact he has been a consultant to us

for years now and he had some excellent fellows and gals under him and on their whole team

and of course that all was disbanded when the program was was killed why why was it killed by

um the the in hmm well I won't give names I won't give names a particular congressman but there

were there was a particular congressman who was the chairman of a certain committee and he felt

that NASA was being distracted and wanted to maintain have them maintain their their focus

in other directions and that this kind of system might encourage NASA to be too invigorated

going to Mars and and and so they wasn't there was it was called the M word at that point at that

time they would say well don't say the M word here in the you know around the halls of headquarters

or JSC or wherever you know don't talk about Mars that's not the word you want to use so again

that's the silliness of politics I I guess um but not mention the word Mars Mars was unmentionable

because it wasn't the agenda it it was not approved as an appropriate agenda for at that moment

in time at that point this goes back to to 1999 and 2000 and it was not appropriate there there

was this application to use this structure as a dormitory for the ISS but somehow that was

drowned in the noise of instead of that it you know being something that could be looked upon

as as applicable to Mars so you know it was a good program that that should have continued yeah

should have I I don't get Bob there's a breaking news story from Pasadena right now new measurements

of Mars South Pole region are indicating extensive frozen water now listen the polar region contains

enough water to cover the entire planet in a liquid layer about 11 meters or 36 feet deep

in other words cover all of Mars to 36 feet deep that's a lot of water Bob it is it is it makes

you think that that planet offers a tremendous potential particularly for for countries that have

a lot of population but maybe not a lot of land mass mm-hmm that's an awful lot of water I guess

water is necessary for life water is necessary for fuel correct correct so if we're to go to Mars

and come back and or do that trip on any sort of regular basis at all we have to have water

there because water is real heavy and you can't launch a whole bunch of it from earth right

that's correct and you you need to have we incorporate water as part of our radiation shielding

because we we intend to use that in a certain way that helps to provide supplemental

protection for deep space missions for for or even for long tours of duty and in Leo but

but deep space is worse once you exit Leo Leo low earth orbit right right okay you've got to

remember a lot of us are not all up on all of these by now you've been doing this along the

acronyms just fall right out of your mouth no I've gotten written all over my t-shirts and

everywhere dashboard of my car you name it yeah I get the confusing do you remember the moment

in your life Bob when you decided to make this unbelievable investment in going to space

well I made a commitment I never knew exactly what direction I was going to take because it was

so many years ago and I just kind of had a general passion and feeling that by God I was going to

get involved in in some major way and that happened just when I was a kid and and you know I've

told you that story and and sometimes when you're a young kid you get something in your head because

of some of of a an event or or a story that someone has told you about and and you never forget it

and and that's lived with me all my life yeah but as an adult I guess for some years you've had

reasonably the you know the financial structure to be able to do something like this there must have

been a moment though as an adult when you said all the hell with it let's do it well yeah that

actually occurred in about 1997 I felt that I was financially ready and that I had waited long

enough and that's when I started casting about looking for what the hell to do and then ultimately

to get anything into space including the satellites that you're now launching you you had to go to

Russia instead of the U.S. you had to go to Russia to get your stuff launched you're still doing

that and that's got to be a big story why Russia why not the U.S. Oh it is a big story it's

it's a good news bad news kind of story and the good news was that Russia fortunately for us

has been a fantastic asset actually for us because without them we wouldn't have anything in

in space and we had at the same time we had multiple lines in the water of course on on everything

that we do and we try to anyway and and so we had another agreement and contract with an American

company but the American company just didn't come through and so thank God we had the other line

of water with the Russians and they did and and they've been tremendous to work with in addition

to that folks in less I'm wrong I believe every time you launch a satellite bomb it's an SS 18

which is one of was one of the Soviet unions biggest assets in terms of carrying multiple

warheads to the United States and elsewhere around the world for what would have been a horrible war

so they use SS 18s is that correct Bob it is correct we just we just asked him to remove the the warhead

on the missile that was aimed at Las Vegas and please put our space craft on it all right

Bombay galo is my guest he's already in space and he's about to go again shortly from the high

desert the both of us actually from the high desert I'm Art Bell

indeed here I am we're dealing with a missing cat yet he has somehow managed to escape or he's hiding

in a new place that we can't find listen everybody my guest is none other than Bob Bigelow he is a

private citizen in space and it's going to be more than just Bob Bigelow in space eventually

there are plans and if you look on the website you'll see more than just sort of an artist's

rendition of those plans you'll see next to the real McCoy and if we could show you the real McCoy

and I think Bob may have some photographs on his website of some of the satellites that he's got

in orbit or if he doesn't he'll have them there soon or get them to me and I'll have them there

at any rate in a moment we'll continue with Bob Bigelow again here's Bob Bigelow bomb so it's

SS 18s and it's kind of nice I guess everyone you launch is one that is no longer armed with nuclear

warheads aimed this away that's right we started with the you know saying okay take about

several of those those warheads off of this one over here since it's named at Las Vegas we'll

begin there and that's seven million tons of explosives not going no I was under Joker did they

actually remove the warheads that were aimed at Vegas it's no joke it actually no joke it's no

joke there there are eleven hundred that are hot and there are a hundred and sixty five available

to the private sector well thanks for considering Las Vegas first because in every movie I've ever seen

Las Vegas is the first to go okay maybe they just think both self-destructing our own and that

waste the nuclear arsenal maybe at any rate soon another one is used soon another one goes into

orbit now you have plans that go all the way out to the year 2013 now this is all reasonably

within your lifetime and my lifetime right that's right hopefully do you plan to go to space

I do I definitely do what year would you go oh I don't I don't know about I guess just so I

don't wait too long and I can still crawl on board you know I don't actually have a particular

year in mind but I think it's a function of being prepared and and knowing that that

something is in place in terms of structure where when that time occurs I'm not leaving

something behind that can't be self-sustaining right right so you're out 2013 guess it a year

when you might feel comfortable now the the modules start going up Sundance are in 2010 right correct

you so you might wait what a year and then go we have we have quite a quite a program

and by the way I think there are two or three things here to mention is one is that we are a member

of a group of companies that are all kind of in this together in this this private sector effort

because unless transportation is there you know eventually for for for people then we're we're

going nowhere so we're very connected to whether there's transportation Sundance or is the

exception we are going to launch that spacecraft regardless of whether there's transportation

but we are also connected to space force the availability of having dominion and control over

space force without getting knocked off by DOD or NASA and because of some agenda that they have

so it's very important for the private sector to have control where if they promise schedules

and they promise delivery of flights they they have to be able to be the southwest airlines of

that kind of operation and be able to fulfill those commitments so all right while we're here

let's talk a little bit about NASA because we've got the space shuttle such as it is but it's

got a retirement date I guess and there's going to be a number of years where the United States I

guess is not going to launch anything at all we're going to be out of the space business more or

less is that true that is absolutely true it's an unbelievable situation that we're going to be

in but the shuttle fleet which of course started off being five and now is down to three has about

14 missions ahead of it and so it's kind of even not certain whether all 14 can be accomplished by

those three shuttles in that length of time but nevertheless that is the agenda so it's a very

high flight rate for them and between when that shuts down in O10 there won't be mothballed

Michael Griffin who is the NASA administrators you know has said recently that they do not see

anyway that we will have a transportation system the the Orion system before O15 so America will

be a fact we have appropriated and Congressional a billion over billion dollars a year for transportation

expenses that will be applicable to those points in time from from O10 to O15 or beyond so from

O10 to 15 we're not going to space where there's nothing that we have no vehicles that could get us

as far as the federal program is concerned now there there's a caveat to that there are two

caveats to that the first caveat is that Congress shoved and pushed to its credit so we have to give

them a little credit not too much we don't want to get carried away but a little credit they shoved

and pushed and they forced NASA to to embrace the private sector in a transportation program called

COTS and that's an alternative transportation program to the lunar program that NASA is is trying

to implement so they took some of money the little less than 500 million dollars appropriated

over a five-year period so say a hundred million averaging a hundred million dollars per year

now that's a lot of money but you got to keep something in mind here everything is relative right

so there's five hundred million dollars that is that was awarded to do private companies and that's

out of a that's out of a some of money that's going to be at least ninety billion dollars

the NASA will have that will be appropriated to NASA over the course of that five years

so out of ninety billion dollars about four hundred and seventy five million was given to the

private sector to say hey take this money and go do what we need to have done to get a transportation

system to the ISS and back in a five-year period of time so the money was actually pretty much

divided equally not quite equally but one company got a little more than the other and between

those two companies and they are space x and kissler rocket plane and they have been in the

news a lot because they are trying to succeed and they have a huge challenge ahead of them

anybody wanting to go to space in the private sector has a monstrous challenge and you

serve outlined the technical part the money part and of course worse of all the politics of it all

there you know you said you thought about it and there's too many choke points there's no

real point where a massive audience like this could could help you out there must be a few points

that are they're more sticky than others I mean it just doesn't seem right if if Bob Bigelow

or anybody else wants to go to space and you've demonstrated certainly a capability to

to do so and you've got a satellite up there that's going to is functioning another one that's

about to and they're going to continue to function and obviously you're going to get a big space

as a matter of fact to give people an idea when you when you when you've got about four or five

modules you know in 2012 or 13 or whatever it is how does the amount of space inside your various

modules compare to what the international space station will have in its heyday if if and when

the the ISS is completed it's the intent is to have 1,100 cubic meters NASA had a while ago

decided to cut that in half to 550 550 cubic meters and call it core complete but through various

political pressure I think that that size is is going to march more toward the full 1,100 meters

maybe and in you know four three four years or so that kind of a TBD in our case each of our

modules is over 300 meters so we could accumulate 11 well we could accumulate 1200 meters with four

modules they're they're 300 plus meters so I thought you don't give you some idea yeah big

and by the way our modules are fairly generic and you know our our intent believe it or not

is not necessarily to operate space hotels but these modules are our intent is to serve

different client communities and essentially lease these structures

two different kinds of users and it could be you know the Harrow Hotel company or Richard Branson

or the MGM folks for hotels you know it could be that and but it may also be major corporations

that want to use them for laboratory purposes and we also have created a we're going to make a

special announcement in Colorado in April as to a whole new market that basically hasn't been

been kicked around much at all by anybody that we know of and and and I'll tell you what it is

right now and so I wasn't going to do this but I decided yeah let's do it sure we're we're making a

major major presentation as I said in Colorado and and this is at the Space Foundation Symposium

which is going to be attended by about 7,000 people and we're trying to launch our whole business

kind of concept plan at least the major portions of it and one of the major areas of markets that

we think makes a lot of sense is providing what we call hang time for what we call sovereign clients

and what that means is there are out there in other countries including America about 225 active

astronauts now that's been the case for a long time for decades that's all that's all there is

now why isn't there another zero on the end of that you know why after all these years and

and why are there only 225 and and barely hanging on to that and and mainly it's because

there haven't been places for them to go and it's been it's an expensive

activity can they afford that is the other question so the the waiting list is huge for them to

get on board the ISS and in fact I've heard it mentioned many times if an astronaut has not flown

and they're in their 40s they have a good chance of never flying just because if you do the math

you know the ISS is going to expand and await its population to six people but right now it's

three and they change shifts every six months so it's you know six people a year that's done so

there was one more thing that I remember you said to me that really worried me during those

years at the United States may not be flying at all the Russians will be so the Russians

sort of oh yeah inherent space station right isn't that great I mean the Americans well the

Americans will have spent this is really interesting the Americans will spend a hundred billion

dollars by O-10 right after all the launches on the shuttles are done and all the modules

and everything else they will have spent a hundred billion dollars and they have no friggin way

of getting there my god yeah no way to get there that's all so the only people that could get us

there we'd have to beg a ride on a Russian spacecraft you got it you got it and right now the

Russians have agreed to 2011 to price those seats at 21 million eight hundred thousand dollars

and after that all bets are off why Bob we've got ICBMs right we had at least as many if not more

than the Russians or at least we had parity of some sort so why aren't you using old US ICBMs

instead of Russian ICBMs excellent question excellent question well you know what the answer was

know that because of salt two treaties demanded that we destroy X number both countries destroy

X number of missiles per year and so on take them off the market so to speak well in American

rocket companies politics and lobby against that because what what what happened is

those less expensive rockets now become big they get on the market and in theory they take the

the place of a much more expensive system so you wouldn't want I mean if you know if you're looking

at this from Boeing standpoint and Lockheed standpoint you're gonna say hey wait a minute

let's let's take bulldozers bulldozers and drive over these things but but I thought the American

taxpayers own these sort of well yeah but the other ones have to be manufactured don't they

to replace them and and what will happen is anything that's that's available for launching it

potentially can take market share away from the market away from other other systems that that

can be that can be used well then that had to be a lobbying effort really on the part of the aerospace

people well yes right of course of course yes yes if you're selling you're selling missiles you

do not you do not want government missiles on the on the black market for sale at a tenth of the

cost well no but you know through some sort of procedure you could determine that they're going

to a good use for example what you're doing well yeah but this isn't a you know business is

business and if you're building missiles and making those it's not philanthropy that you're into

you're into trying to maintain your market share you're trying to make sure that there aren't

other sources of missiles that are going to that are going to grab part of your market but this

is just a waste of money I mean the Russians are not wasting money they're turning these missiles

into turning them over virtually to the private sector in other words to you selling them to you

or whatever the launch capability yeah but that's only because the Russians don't have the money

you see necessity is the mother of invention and the fact is since they don't have the money

they were forced to be judicious and careful and innovative in in their whole thought process

over here we have a lot of money we have more than we just crush them yes yes oh my god um

that must be an awfully frustrating awfully frustrating thing for you I mean obviously you

would want to do business with your own country if you could yep in fact we did we contracted with

with a small aerospace company it is in the process of trying to perfect a new rocket

and they were supposed to have that ready and they've had some difficulties and they're still

working at it and I think they will eventually succeed but it really played hell with our

schedule so we couldn't just hang around and hang around and hang around no I understand

it's just sad yeah it is sad it really is and uh you know on the one hand uh we don't have enough

money to go back to the moon we don't have enough money to go to Mars but we've got enough money

to crush missiles and then uh have somebody like you have to go to the Russians and buy theirs

I've well going actually going back to the moon is is a huge financial problem in fact to put

this in perspective for you to show you just how distant no pun intended uh the moon is from a

financial standpoint uh think of it this way at the heyday at the peak of the lunar initiative

back in the 60s at one point in time in one year the United States spent five percent of its budget

now we're at a three trillion dollar budget now that's a hundred and fifty billion dollars right

and one year one year we're talking about here one year and one year at the at the peak of that

initiative it was five percent of the budget at that point in time okay now if you fast forward

here to this point in time that five percent would be a hundred and fifty billion because you now

have a three trillion dollar budget okay so the hundred and fifty billion dollars well

NASA's NASA's new 0708 budget is is the same as last year 16.2 billion

wow and all by the way half of that budget is spent for the shuttle to maintain the shuttle and the

ISS so that will do yeah right and so so Bush said uh go forward and capture bread on the

waters and multiply on your own here because we're not giving you any new any new money

you you're going to go to the moon based on the cannibalization of the shuttle and ISS

programs after o 10 we're going to you're going to shut them down you're going to phase them out

and those dollars uh that half of the annual budget you're now going to allocate toward the moon

oh my god um yeah so that's why politics is up at the top of your list

you know boy is it yeah and you do have an office in Washington that I guess addresses the

appropriate agencies and spends all its time trying to get permits for you and that's everything

all of the time yes it is a horrendous challenge okay all right uh hold tight Bob uh Bob Bigelow

is my guest he's not talking about going to space he's in space and uh plans are just absolutely

incredible they don't stop at 2012 by the way as the mine calendar does they go straight on to

2016 that would be the sixth standard big module from the high desert I'm Art Bell

indeed here I am Bob Bigelow is my guest and uh he is his company Bigelow Aerospace is already there

and the plans they have would just blow your mind if you want to want to take a look uh go to

coast to coastam.com and the photographs at Aaron and I took when we were at Bigelow Aerospace will

convince you of the extremely serious no fooling around effort this man is making we'll be right back

well all right uh back again with Bob Bigelow Bob welcome back oh thank you uh actually all of this

this aerospace business now is new prior to aerospace you were into all kinds of

paranormal subjects uh very deeply into the paranormal and I know you financed many many

scientists that I've interviewed uh on the air over the years and I guess uh in some ways one

sort of led in to the other and in in fact kind of meshes uh or may mesh with the other is that so

uh well yeah I think that's kind of fair to say I think so um now a lot of my

listeners you know they follow you follow G very closely Bob and obviously here you are a

private citizen with a spacecraft in orbit another one about to be more on the way you're

going to have a lot of cameras in space uh you're going to have a lot of ability to look around

as it were and uh and view unfiltered uh untampered uh let's see what I'm going to show how am I

trying to put this uh you're gonna you're gonna have a lot of uh a lot of footage Bob uh that

didn't go through anybody's filter are you gonna be looking

well you know the uh one of the things that that characterizes the uh UFO enigma and and that

fabulously interesting topic is that it is in command of its its behavior and and and it really

is selective as to when it wants to expose or where and to whom and and the timing exactly

and um it is always a challenge to try to ever get a replication of an exposure and and and have

a second performance uh those kinds of things are relatively unique and so it's a catch can

catches catch can kind of thing and obviously uh you know our cameras are um looking back at the

earth and uh as as we show those those scenes on our well our website we also have a lot of cameras

however that are looking back on the spacecraft itself or to monitor the behavior of the spacecraft

what is going on and and of course a lot of those cameras are our interior as well um the majority

though i i think are probably exterior located but if if uh yeah and you know if you're to say

look would you promise us that if you capture something looking in the face on one of those lenses

that you'll you'll you'll identify it as such you're damn right we will

all right in addition to that aside from a possible little gray face or something like that

the STS cameras have on occasion uh caught things that are very very curious i mean

things that just almost can't be uh they've caught objects uh apparently shooting at other objects

they've caught all kinds of things Bob and and you're going to have cameras focused uh in the same

area so if you catch something like that you'll make that available absolutely absolutely we see

something crossing in a certain direction that makes a right angle turn that is an almost

yeah it sure is uh i'm sure that you've seen some of the STS uh footage of things

just like that yeah yeah yeah yeah and they they explained it away as ice crystals that were blown

off prop systems on board yes i know i know uh from the tone of your voice i take it you didn't

fully buy that you said uh no not based on a couple of those that i've seen i i think uh that's

something else okay um is it reasonable bomb uh in your mind that uh if there was another

intelligence out there since uh since we um set off the first above ground

test uh that they would have been watching us that they would be monitoring us and therefore

something in uh low earth orbit or any kind of orbit might well get a look at something

yeah i think uh you know you're you you have kind of two thoughts that you've just expressed

the same time and in one suggest that that the option that the awareness of this phenomena occurred

at the time that uh that we first started detonating uh nuclear devices yes sir um and i could

argue that maybe uh it has been around much longer than that but but then yeah i i think you

know you have a number of astronauts that have come back and and reported things that they have

seen uh both terrestrial incidentally as well as as airborne uh well that's absolutely true of course

um and it's it's kind of under reported um but uh yes many astronauts have quite a few

astronauts have seen something something and uh it's so it's entirely possible that in this venture

i mean it is uh it is after all going where a few very few people you just documented it yourself

have gone and so i don't know i've always had this theory that maybe for since the beginning

of man uh bob they've been watching us or been keeping tablinus but certainly when we entered

the element 92 age uh we would have really captured their uh more intent uh observation of us i

would think well i think i think uh it would be interesting to be uh an objective observer

of uh the the human species and and uh ponder the progress of the uh of the technological

achievements at the same time that you're hoping that uh jesus the spiritual maturity is keeping pace

and uh what happens uh when it never does and and are we are we you know i wonder are we the klingons

yeah are we the klingons um we may be we're not all that well behaved at at the moment uh you and i

talked uh to some degree uh bob about the uh the the current ecological situation uh on our planet

it's not the very best and uh if you look at the way it's headed uh it's not headed in a particularly

good direction i i just watched algor's uh inconvenient truth and it scared the hell out of me

it was it's so well done yeah so well done yes uh there are irrefutable truths that he presented in

that no matter how you feel about algor and i know a lot of people hate his guts uh a lot of the

a lot of those things are just irrefutable truths that's all there is to it i mean he had pictures

they were undeniable uh what's going on on our planet is undeniable and eventually

we're going to need more real estate um uh perhaps sooner than later and now um the only close

real estate right now uh that's worth uh two hoots uh or might be worth two hoots would be

Mars correct that that parrot is i i mean we we have the ability to get Mars don't we it is uh

what we do and we do and and we have had uh even even through crude chemical systems uh they work

and um there are alternative uh systems uh underway uh being developed that can

significantly reduce the time of of each each uh each way travel so um i have a friend in fact

that's uh an astronaut that has been working on you know i am propulsion system for for a long

time that it appears now that after all these years he's um on more solid footing and making

progress and and he it tells me that he expects uh that transition time from Earth to uh to

Mars uh to be maybe as short as a month and a half wow and are under his time for propulsion

of course Mars has you know it's not a perfectly circular orbit and and so the deviation

substantial you need to time it when it's closest to Earth and it can be as close as maybe 80

million miles and as far away as 130 something in miles in fact i think at one point here a few

years ago is in it was in about the 65 million mile which was a rare very rare proximity to Earth but

obviously that shortens your travel time okay well you said something earlier uh that caught my

attention and and you were laughing when you said it but uh you said there are going to be

great you know just great if the Chinese decided they were going to go to Mars because that would

get us going again we couldn't possibly let the Chinese get Mars and lay down whatever claims they

could lay down or even just the claim of being there first without getting into a race with them

and then we'd somehow find the money wouldn't we well we would because uh first of all you wouldn't

start world world war three over that kind of an event uh it's it's not life-threatening you know

it's not threatening any other sovereign country and uh you know trading commerce would

would proceed merrily on its way so nobody is getting harmed in the process physically there's

you know you wouldn't start a war over that uh also there is so much ambiguity about the 67

space tree that we mentioned earlier and that a lot a lot of folks feel that it just doesn't hold

water anymore India is declaring a space program and and uh other countries even Britain has

I mean a lunar program and India intends to package send a package to the moon and and Russia

and China have now partnered uh in that regard uh I think even Germany even Germany even England

yes a number of countries have so I think I think uh you know the 67 treaty probably is going to

be interpreted quite differently through application um so eventually we're going to need it I mean

all the best theoretical physicists that I've talked to have said the only way the human race

ultimately is going to survive is to find a new home it's going to have to find a more real estate

and and right now Mars is the only thing within uh the thinkable reach really um so

so what would get us there well a race would get us there um short of that why are we not

doing it Bob is well business could get us there too a race is one one one approach but actually

there are probably business concepts that um could also provide that kind of uh financial support

and emphasis to to make that happen well all right explain to me what business model uh you could

imagine that would uh get us tomorrow's well I think I think um if you uh came to a point in time

where the perception was that you could adequately uh mount an expedition to Mars and you could

have essentially a convoy of structures and maybe and as a precursor to that you'd already

deployed uh along the way various depots you know so that you can stop off and replenish your

supply of candy bars and so what not and so you've done that and maybe you've also deployed to

the surface of Mars as as uh um you know some others have suggested um and Zuber and others

that you might want to do that um and I and I think I think the moon is a is a necessary precursor

to this because you learn a lot about how to behave and in hostile environments and a good

moon is a good place to start that it's it's close to home and it is a hostile environment and

uh Mars is a little less hostile but it's also tricky because it has been asked about that it

is a little less hostile than the moon right yeah but it's tricky because it has winds you know

and in those those winds are interesting uh feature to have to deal with with structures

I interviewed uh not long ago somebody from nascent they were praising the winds uh particularly

these whirlwinds that would come along even though they don't have the same pressure gradients

hour winds do they were enough to clean off the solar panels on the little bugs we've got

gone around up there well yeah but uh they've been known to click along at 300 miles an hour and of

course the that actually isn't 300 earth miles in the sense of boss of of actual uh power because of

the atmosphere change but it is equivalent to 100 miles an hour here and so I mean how would you

like to have um you've got some habitat sitting out there and you want to make sure that thing is

really nailed down because 100 miles an hour force is huge and uh of course if you've got you have

solar feel out there with your solar arrays I think it would do more than clean off the dust off

your solar arrays so you probably want to go to our TGs radioautotopic thermal nuclear generators

which which would be the practical power source to have and and they're you know they're fairly

benign they're not they're not something that uh is uh is going to cause a uh a

fissionable reaction and um that's the kind of power that you probably want

Bob could the uh space shuttle go to the moon no no no as a matter of fact

it matter as a matter of fact uh they have difficulty uh launching from um the cape

and on one of the shuttles I'm not sure if it's Atlantis or Discovery a full payload because

the inclination uh the station is so difficult to get to it can barely get to that

and the reason that's there is because the first modules it's at a 64 degree inclination that's

because the first modules to the station were launched from binkinor in russia and you know

on state of the cape and had they been launched from the cape well then they would have been a

probably a 28 degree orbit and then much easier to get to it so that the shuttle has the shuttle

fleet has is designed only for low earth orbit for leo operations and not really anything very

altitude intense at that I heard it suggested by someone somewhere that once you were in low

earth orbit uh you were not that far from the moon in some respects absolutely yeah yeah the

gravity well is what they were referring to and and that is that once you can get to leo you're

halfway to anywhere and that's because the gravity that the you know that field is so important

to take so much energy with conventional means consequence since we don't have levitating

capabilities yet um it takes it takes a lot of energy just to get to leo and then you know

and essentially you're on your way all right well you're obviously launching with uh conventional

means the ss 18 now I'm sure that you have looked into every possible uh propulsion system

that you could get your hands on or that anybody imagined or mentioned or whispered about

and there is nothing out there right now is there bomb uh accept uh what we've got except the

heavy power way to get to orbit well what you know or what you speculate about and what's

actually that you can that you can get your hands on easily are are very different things and so

you go where the line of least resistance is right and you go with systems that are well

understood that are available that are um economical and yada yada yada so you know you that's

that's the way you approach things and you also you also want uh you know there there are a lot

of different things that are offered up as uh even even rather conventional but but new technologies

that are whizbang situations you know self-healing uh membranes and space shape shape shifting

structures and so forth and um they they have found they have now found their way into the lexicon

of of of our language and then to the actual application of of space science wherein we used to

just read about those in the UFO books uh twenty thirty years ago you know but um so anyway that

aside so even in those kinds of things you want to be careful that you don't put them in the path

of really uh um a a a single fault tolerant situation i mean you you don't you want to be very very

careful when life is at stake oh yes indeed and uh let's talk about life for a second on your first

spacecraft uh you launched i've got pictures as a matter of fact i think of some of the

was it beetles yeah yeah little little managascar hissing beetles and the little buggers

survived a complete vacuum in our tests we tested a lot of little critters because we didn't

know what to expect and those things survived after being in a vacuum something like an hour

or maybe it was even two hours the unbelievable time i forget what i was told exactly but something

in the order of an hour to two hours and of course they hold them out and they're you know

legs up belly up and oh okay another group didn't make it well they came back they came back so

they have the gold star feel of approval for flight yeah how can that be i mean do you understand

no no no no i have no clue art i have no idea i don't know how anything uh could stand a complete

lack of error a complete decompression for an hour and then live yeah and come back that's

well nothing else did that was tested i i have no clue no clue but we we we uh you know kind of

through these things together uh on that genesis one and so we we scrambled around and put some

Mexican jumping beans in there and and these beetles and said okay guys you're off okay i guess

there's going to be a progression of uh higher life forms that are going to be going on future

spacecraft hopped off i suppose with the human uh and then many humans all right Bob Bigelow

is my guest and will be back in just a very few moments i am a creature of the night there's

no question about that good evening good morning everybody as as it worth we do our best work here

in the night time my guest uh probably not usually up this late is Bob Bigelow he'll be back in

a moment let me um give you a couple of pieces or me a couple of pieces of good news the lost cat

yeti is found next door screaming like a banshee and uh so he's back in custody at the moment

now uh one other thing finally uh we got the artbells pizza punch uh website back up again so those

view good zillions of you who didn't get to see it because it crashed in about nine seconds

you might want to give it another try now it's uh artbells

a-r-t-b-e-l-l-s pizza p-i-z-z-a punch p-u-n-c-h dot com artbells pizza punch dot

com go take a look it's uh it's incredible stuff and i'm going to be looking to many of you for

taste testing as it were we'll be right back incidentally we have an ability for you to ask

questions uh of our guests while he's actually doing the interview it's uh you can just go

up to the website coast goes a-m dot com and fast blast us a question uh bob uh Michael and

Jasper Alabama asks whether we have access meaning we the public uh are you going to give access

to any of the on board cameras particularly the ones uh focus back toward earth are you going to

stream any of that on Genesis 2 well on any any of that matter well on Genesis 2 has a a public

program it's the only spacecraft uh of our pathfinder group that uh we'll have that and it's the

flyer stuff program so we have interior cameras that are going to be following all the things

floating around inside that spacecraft for one thing that um the public has has paid to see

you know they've paid to have that have their items flown and then they're paying to actually have

them captured on film and we will freeze frame those and then put them on our website so people

can see their own stuff if we fail to do that we return all their money really have a it's yeah

it's a money back guarantee that if we can't do that if we can't capture everybody's everyone's

item or anybody's item any particular item in there that we can't identify clearly and put it

on our website then everybody gets their money back that that for those items that we can't find

that we can't grab the the pictures on so there are those cameras then there are cameras outside

that uh we are trying two projection systems just for the heck of it that broadcast message is

perhaps on the hall of the spacecraft outside you know really yeah so we have to just kind of

as a as a second one as a backup situation and we have cameras that will be looking at those

projections and we have some prescribed pre-canned messages uh in case our command and control of those

runs amok but if the command control works then in theory we might be able to execute a you know

virtually a very large menu of communications on the outside of that spacecraft okay um so

yes the answer is there there will be public involvement with the cameras correct correct um

Ralph in uh Cerritos California has uh has US government at any point ever ask you to censor

any possible footage that you might get in space no not not as yes as of this time

how would you react to such a request well it would have to be an awfully good reason i mean

you know we we are americans and we feel as patriotic as next guy um but we would have to really

be convinced that such a demand it would have to get into the context of not just probably a

request but an actual demand we we have already experienced something in a different kind of way

other other um in a different context and um and and we and you talk about it well only only

in a circumspect kind of uh way um and and that was that we were the result of the result of

exposing something would have violated and a promise and agreement that we had

with some with some other folks and and uh we we refused to do that it wasn't it wasn't something

that uh in our judgment was was warranted it was something that violated our ethics it violated

our principles of contracts and it violated our keeping our word and it wasn't uh

in the in the context in which it was it we were given this in terms of request it wasn't a

demand it wasn't a in a in a in a in a request and we turned the request down

all right well obviously you can't talk anymore about that so i don't push any further chris and

uh sturistown new hamster uh asks when you get human beings up there uh the space station of course

has uh an escape capability what would your um moduleized station have uh to get people down

in an emergency well the the same capsules that are used to transport people back and forth are

also the lifeboats and so every uh when when sun to answer flies and oh ten the second half of oh

ten uh it will go through a space trial just like you would a sea trial for for a time but

that would be an unoccupied uh space trial and then it would be come a time when there would be

occupancy and that would would necessitate having a transportation mechanism and uh

at that point that that vessel becomes the lifeboat for those folks and any other folks that are

they're subsequently visiting uh that that particular module or other modules gang to it um

are all able to we we would always have enough seats and enough

capsules to bring everyone back home yeah uh steve and my m e florida

asks uh now you don't have to answer all of this you might not be able to what kind of metals are

used mostly on your spacecraft do you custom manufacture your own machinery and or robotics used

in the making of parts we do a combination of things we we are uh general contractors

and so we execute a lot of contracts where we subcontract out all kinds of hardware all kinds of

fabrication and and manufacturing uh of items but we also do that in house as well the uh usual

material that we use for our our standard materials um use is aluminum um composites provide

an opportunity but they're also not user friendly in some respects so um you look at a combination of

of um the the the practicality of of uh whatever the the assignment of the emission is on

on a particular piece of hardware you have always multiple choices i mean go to titanium and

there are all guys six or eight ten different kinds of aluminum and alloys that you can use

and some are more difficult to get in large quantities so it becomes a quantity problem it can

be a cost problem and a machining problem the machining time on titanium is far longer than it would

be on on uh aluminum ingots and and so forth so um each item is is a little different as to

as what its criteria might be and and then we we know common sense drives drives the decision

huh okay um what are the odds uh bob you're about to launch you're going to launch next month

um there must be somebody who tells you what the odds are that you're going to have a successful

launch versus uh you know some trouble well yeah you can you know the the nipper uh as far as the

launch of the rocket the you know the transportation device those have flown uh guys a huge number

of times and they have not had that many failures they you you can count them on one hand but they

flown well over a hundred times i believe and and um so the odds are in your favor in that respect

that uh you you're going to have a successful launch now as far as our spacecraft is concerned um

um we before you go on i i'm very happy for you but i'm not so happy to hear the ss 18 is that

reliable right understandably understandably but you know of course any nation is going to is

going to uh have something that they feel they can count on in in terms of a national crisis

so in that respect you know so it's it's kind of expected that so it is a very high up it is

more reliable than the than the uh i think it's more reliable than the shuttle is so they they

would give you a one in x number of failures right one yeah i think there's somewhere around 98

and a half percent 90 as i recall i believe that's that's about where they are that's quite good

yeah um do you ensure your spacecraft we do not it's uh we we wow you might say we're self

insured so um if you were to lose a spacecraft uh that would uh can you give us a ballpark figure

i mean how expensive are these or can you not talk of it i really can't give a definitive answer

on that but um they are expensive we're prepared if necessary uh to to lose spacecraft you know

when you get into something you have to look at the worst case and and so we are prepared um

um they uh they cost uh the spacecraft cost a lot and so does the launch and and as we migrate

up into larger systems like propulsion buses and and uh rockets that are larger than the nipper

and that's the next size you know up for a sun dancer is is a uh rocket that can carry uh

20,000 pounds or so and um those systems are much more expensive by the way for the

ham radio operators out there you may recall in a previous interview i asked Bob if he could put

a ham repeater on one of those spacecraft and uh by god you tried right we did try we did try and

we got the answer back was that oh you're going to have to be licensed to do that you know what we

said wait a minute it's only a target you know we're not uh we're not going to be broadcasting

or anything like that uh well they didn't care so that's that's what we were confronted with

which is sort of typical of what you're confronted with uh in all kinds of areas in other words

there is so much there is so much paperwork there is so much bureaucracy to make your way through

to get this done to get something in space it's unbelievable it really is it really is art it's

so huge and that's one of the reasons it's nice not uh to have to take government money because

there are there are uh not only so many strings attached but just the paperwork alone and the

imposition of specifications on you you know you have a fair idea of what you want to do

and all kinds of reasons why you want to do these things but if somebody else is writing that check

and it's the ISA's government or I'm probably any government uh they're going to have you dance

to all kinds of music and that spells delay in your schedule and it really spells

or horrific increase in cost all right other than uh the hotel business for example Bob and I

know you've been in some preliminary discussions with some hotel chains um and I I don't know

how much more you can say about that but you have been other than that in terms of a business model

if you had these habitable modules up there now Bob uh would there be enough from the private

sector um to sustain to financially sustain what you're doing we think so and our and and and what

we're trying to do is is go from uh a position of where space complexes are sort of a novelty

to where they become a necessity and we think we have a handle on various

business approaches to where they can evolve into absolute necessities like you know

what your cell phone and what your TV relies on are satellite transmissions and those are necessities

yes today the planet could not do without a huge global uh constellations of satellites

so they are necessities and we think that we have some some plans and ideas that make a lot of

sense perhaps that can evolve these from a novelty kind of status in a sense I mean if you

talk about tourism that is a novelty kind of category but we think we can get them to where

they need to be a necessity and once they they they can reach that position oh my gosh

and we're we're actually more concerned are that we have and frankly we are our biggest concern

rightly or wrongly is when and where is the transportation going to come from and are we

going to have enough spaceports to handle the volume because in our first year of operation we're

looking at 13 flights that first year and nobody's ever flown anywhere near that net many times

to Leo with a crew of people before you know that's over one of them up is there a best place to

to launch from theoretically you yeah you want to fly you know west to east and in the rotation

same direction rotation of the earth and you want to fly in the equatorial belt because the

earth is slightly bows at the center so the rotation speed is higher there than it is at the

north pole and so for starters you you would like that now from a practical standpoint you need

to be where markets are you need to be where customers can get to easily and you know I'm a business

man art you know I had a lot of different businesses over the years I've been involved in banking

and general contracting construction and and you know apartment development so forth is basically

what we've been for gobs of years and so we're we're customer driven we understand that and so

that's why part of our our plan our our program is that people don't have to write checks to buy

these things they can they can rent them they can lease them and they can lease them for fractions

of volume for half the volume if they don't want a whole volume and they can lease them for

fractions of time down to 30 days if they want to well one of the things that you can do in orbit

that are financially viable I mean I I hear people talking about growing crystals and

but I really don't know Bob what are the financially rewarding reasons to be in low-worth orbit

well if you if you are getting back to our two main categories of sovereign clients if you are

sovereign nation and and you have an astronaut core you need some place for those people to go

and maybe you're a country that would like to have a space agency and like to have a core

so but you you why do that if there's nowhere to go so that's a fairly sizable dynamic that we

might be able to grow the astronaut community from 225 maybe you know 500 to a thousand to 2000

if the price is right and if they have somewhere to go and they have reliable schedule transportation

I think there's a huge business waiting for for to be successful there and and the other is in

in the sense of prime clients international corporations let's just take the the computer chip

people or farm of people pharmaceutical people or or medical science if if one or two companies

decide to put laboratory to a module to use as a laboratory and we know that weird things happen

in that environment in terms for organic and on organic substances that they they very

interesting properties occur and you can get into nanotechnologies much more easily in that

venue than you can in terrestrial circumstances so it let's suppose you you you saw your competitor

put a put a laboratory together and you're a wealthy company and and so the question kind of is

then when the first person starts to do that how long does it take for the others to stand back

and sit there and wait before they decide well because obviously the first company is not going

to be talking a lot about their successes or failures about what's going on board and they're

certainly not going to be broadcasting good news you know necessarily right away so that they're

going to try to get things into the marketplace so I think that we we are targeting targeting maybe

the top 20 companies in about eight different theaters of the semiconductor world and the

biotech world pharmaceutical world and there's a number of different communities like that

and even the even something as as prosaic as as as the automobile world you know they they have

sophisticated laboratories of their own also so you might even have Toyota or somebody who

who want to use these facilities are these people now able to go to NASA or able to go to

anybody else if they want to get into space for a reason can they you know lay down a check

and get there no no they can't NASA's on a prescription to to finish up the space station then

shut the the fleet down so there are no payloads the for for life sciences has been severely

caught and for other kinds of experiments has has severely been curtailed okay so yes and then in

2010 we can't get space so we hand the keys to the space station to the Russians in that amazing

number isn't that amazing yeah it's uh amazing is one word that there would be another i'm art

bell will be right back well all right bomb bigelow is my guess bigelow aerospace they've got one

satellite in orbit right now another about to be launched plans that go through 2016 and include

something that uh ultimately is probably going to be bigger than the international space station

it's going to really be big and if you want to get an idea of how big just go up to the website

coast coastam.com and look at a series of photographs and I took quite a number of photographs

of essentially what will be up there it is at the very least eye opening bomb bigelow back in a

moment well here's an interesting question that just popped in my own head bob with regard to

the modules that you're going to have up there eventually there's going to be a big emergency

in space it's going to be at the ISS or it's going to be somewhere and I wonder if your modules

would have docking facilities that would be compatible with either the standard us or Russian

spacecraft. Yes that's a good question the each modules going to hopefully the United States

is going to have it's on docking adaptor system at the present time it does not

we use exclusively Russian systems the APAS systems and the probing corner are a Russian

system so but there is there is something underway for this country and what we would do is outfit

each module at each end for each airlock there would be docking adapters that would accommodate

more than one type and that's presuming that or is assuming that we would have

access to that kind of traffic that and indeed if we were to use a Russian docking adaptor

that presumably we had you know some some relationship there for that kind of traffic

provision and same thing with the with the American system now you also have to

sort of define what is what is the crisis because there are many kinds of crises that may

not require or what would not necessitate actually removing people from the complex and sending

them back to earth. Now of course this is way off the wall but supposing you had you had your

modules up there and there was a crisis would you expect help from NASA?

in that kind of situation you're you're again it gets back to the kind of crisis that we're

talking about probably time you could have let's suppose we have a time of the essence crisis

let's let's put a parameter that time is essential let's put that parameter on there now if if time

is essential there may be no time to to respond with a a launch and acquiring the target usually

it takes 24 hours to acquire the target it might be done earlier quicker than that you may have

a 48 hour window where that's usually the prescription for the Russians and the Americans where

you rendezvous and dock within a 48 hour period so it might be anywhere within a 16 to 40 hour

some on our period so depends on how urgent that crisis is let's suppose it's a medical crisis

let's suppose somebody is in need of an apt index to me and now you got to do some invasive surgery

and and this is kind of interesting because there's another whole field out there that we haven't

talked about yet tonight which is informational with regard to removing organs and removing things

without having extensive invasions of tissue and only in a small small incision and yet being

able to extract a lot of stuff so that needs to be performed now that that can't wait so you

need to have the medical facilities and the and the you know first aid capabilities so to say

so to speak that that empower you to do that because in Leo let's suppose you're on the moon

let's suppose you're halfway to Mars and you have these medical emergencies so there's various

kinds of preparations that need to be made with a surgical facility on board with recovery area

on board and you might have on a long duration mission or even on the on the moon you would want to

have a complete clinic available for that because you just can't turn around cold pack you know

so you've got to have kind of the attitude that hey maybe you're you're you know it's like being

5,000 feet underwater you're you're on your own in a sense and you better be pretty well self-contained

yeah I guess so um Grover in to Larry California asks an interesting question he

he says that what you described allowing other countries for example to have astronauts

on your station makes you sound a little bit like a space mercenary is that is that too harsh

I don't know quite what that means oh in other words a space for hire in other words you're

just kind of a mercenary there and in the sense that you're allowing your station to be used for

those who can afford to use it and want want to get their countries into space well it would

kind of don't really can't see what the where the direction of that is particularly

let's suppose that would be perhaps no different than um you know in this country we do red flag

a blue flag flag exercises with our air force right and we have for decades and decades and decades

had a variety of foreign air force pilots fly out here at Nellis you know at the air force gunnery

range and this happens at all kinds of other places around the country as well and so

training facilities are really important they're hard to come by and the United States has been

the host to umpteen countless number of pilots from other countries in that regard and these are

countries that are friends of ours and these are countries that the United States looks upon as

folks that certainly we look upon them as satisfactory from a standpoint of selling them

military aircraft which north of Grumman and other companies certainly have done for many years

so in addition to that we also look at them as as friendly forces in terms of battle and having

them prepare be prepared and so on and they're all part of usually the NATO forces you know that's

all kind of a family the NATO family and so in that regard we kind of look upon these complexes

in the same way that why not use these for training facilities which they can't get that kind of

location anywhere else I mean there's there's you can go through all the centrifuge trials you want

to and and so forth and neutral buoyancy tank experiences but nothing nothing nothing comes close

to the real deal and there's only one place you can get that and so we think hey you know

let's go to the same countries that the United States already is predisposed to for a variety of

reasons for for NATO alliances and ISS flights and say look hey we're here you know and we're here

to serve you okay Steven and Vista California then described it a little differently maybe this

is easier instead of leasing its sounds like these will be essentially space time shares

you could yeah that there's that's not too far we actually have two different situations there

there are modules that are leased for various kinds of time what like a time share in various

kinds of volume and then there are modules that are given freely to the hang time sovereign client

users the astronaut astronauts and I say free in the sense that those are not leased they're not

these are two separate users entirely you would not find hang time users on a leased module that

is that is leased by a prime client exclusively for them so but you may find hang timers there

together with different nationalities and they're on a they're on a complex that's dedicated to

that particular mission to to satisfying the needs of those hang time astronauts and they are

charged a fee based on the transportation cost and the time of duration on board that complex

and actually the video that we have on their website is a little misleading our intent really is

to have as early as possible three separate complexes rather than having one all gang together

and the reason for that is it's it's derived for two from two directions one is that

there are sensitive a number of sensitive activities that a prime client might want to do without

having a lot of disturbances a lot of docking and undocking and a lot of you know perturbations

on board that complex and also the second reason it might need to be in a different orbit of

inclination to make it more accessible for the traffic provider for the transportation provider

you know so we talked earlier about the 64-degree inclination and the 28-degree inclination

and that therefore you might want to have several complexes in different geographical

so-to-speak locations all right circling back to another item when they told you with regard

to amateur radio ham radio that you would have to have a license yeah i wonder bob if that if

any licensed amateur i'm an advanced class of you six oh bb it may well be that if i were involved

or any licensed amateur were involved that would be what they're talking about and it might simply

take an application by a licensed amateur to do it or maybe if it's in space there's some further

license that i don't understand involved that is possible now you are into territory that i don't

understand so that may very well be possible and and what we should do then is hook you up

with any one of the three program managers we have we have Eric Hackenstad who's a program manager

for a Sundancer and we have Jay Ingham and Dan who's the are the program Dan Cohen for the program

managers of genesis two and for galaxy and galaxy probably is the one see right now it's too late

for gen four g tail i know i know but galaxy in 2008 maybe not so late maybe not so late

at all for that one and what we do if we hook you up with any of those three guys we could maybe

make it happen if what you're suggesting here by using you as the venue for this, maybe

you could make it happen.

I would be happy to become involved, have them contact me, and we'll look into it, Bob.

I'd love to see something for amateur radio get up there.

And it would be quite a public kind of thing, so I think it'd be good.

The more you can get the public involved, and again, let's come back one more time to

this.

I know there are a lot of choke points here, but there's got to be somebody, some agency

that the public could contact, and in some way help you out and help you through some

of this mess that you're constantly going through.

Did you check with your Washington office?

Did they have any ideas?

The Washington office response would be to contact the Department of State, and well,

actually, it would be to contact Congress and put pressure on the Space and Science

committees of Congress to probably transfer back the authorities over Eintar to the Department

of Commerce, where they were once upon a time.

And once upon a time, they were more user-friendly, so I'm told, when they were in, when they

resided in the Department of Commerce, versus the Department of State, because the Department

of Commerce carried a little bit more about commerce, of actual commerce, you know, they

kind of felt that, hey, there's a connection between commerce and paychecks, you know?

Yes, indeed.

All right.

Well, maybe some in the audience can certainly help out with that.

Listen, a couple of few weeks ago now, I had George Napp and Column Color her on, and

we did a show on the Skinwalker Ranch, which you own.

Yes.

I wonder if you can give us any late updates on the Skinwalker Ranch.

Things we've been kind of going through a UFO flap over the last months since the O'Hare

Airport incident, and it's been pretty wild, Bob.

Do you have any comments on that and any update on the ranch?

Oh, well, you know, I've been, I still am involved in investigations, not in the intensity

that I was in the 1990s and the late 80s and, you know, prior to when I just had to jump

in on the space subject, but, well, okay, going to the ranch, yeah, we had a period of

time where there was a law in that ranch activity, and that lasted for, oh, guys, perhaps a year

and a half or two years, I don't even call exactly how long it was, but there was a time

there where, you know, in this subject, it kind of ebbed and flows, as you know.

And so lately, in the last couple of years, we've had, we've had a reemergence of activity,

and it's, it's, and again, it doesn't repeat itself, it's, it's, the characteristics

are that they're very unsuspecting as to, as you do not suspect the time or, or the kind

of performance or the timing of the performance, number one, and these do not repeat themselves

either in the same way, number two, and number three, there does not appear to be a hostile

intent. It's not a performance that appears to deliberately or, you know, cause harm.

More like pulverized activity.

Yeah, there is a, there is a sense of game with that there is a strong sense, and, and I'm

not sure, you know, I won't go down the relationship characterizing it as, as relationships

or anything like that sort, but there is, I'm sure you know, there's, you know, this is a,

this is a topic that seems to lend itself to conscious behavior or consciousness connections.

I'll put it that way.

That's right.

And, and so, you can get the feeling that there is an awareness that we can't account for.

There is an awareness that is not, not something in which you have control over me, and so

therefore, you know, we, these performances are at the behest of the performer.

We, we are, we are an observer and a bystander and a participant willing or unwilling, you

know.

And this, and we are getting an education, you know, we get, and all of this kind of stuff

produces information.

And just like the little spacecraft that we're, we're flying an attempt to try and do something

grand someday, it's all very informational in, in, and, you know, an accountability area.

For example, guys, we've researched all these different subjects from crop circles and

accountability and, and, and abductees and, and, uh, propulsion systems and shapes of

craft and all kinds of other, um, consciousness connected kind of things.

And, and so, um, you know, you just, um, well, I don't know where you want me to go in

this, but I think that the, in account, I mean, the accountability area has an example

for, if you, if you want to say, well, what could you make use of?

Let's say this at this, this, suppose you were to ask the question, well, is there anything

about this that might relate beneficially to a, an application, you know, that you can,

that you could do in, in, in some time soon, well, I would say in a, in a cattle mutilation

area, for example, uh, guys, there are some very interesting, um, exhibitions of, uh, relatively

non-invasive surgery that have removed a great deal of, uh, tissue from an animal.

And you don't know under what circumstance that animal was anesthetized or, or, or, was

it already dead or what?

But the, the less invasive you can make your surgery, the faster your recovery, right?

Of course.

So in a space-based application, that's very important.

You don't want a lot of loose liquids flying around and so you want to do things to, to

heal a patient that are the least invasives that you could do.

I never thought about that.

There might actually be application there.

I never thought about that.

All right, Bob, um, I've got a, a, a, a, a, a question when I get back.

I know you funded, uh, scientists, you've looked into consciousness.

You've looked into survival of, uh, of, of, of what are, I guess, our soul, uh, after

physical death.

And so when we get back, I want to ask you if you've come to any conclusions with everything

you've funded about life after death, Bob Bigelow back in a moment.

For years and years behind the scenes, most of it, frankly, behind the scenes, Bob Bigelow

has funded scientists who are looking into areas that we talk about all the time on

coast to coast AM, areas like survival of consciousness beyond bodily death as an example.

He's done work and, uh, and has funded people that, uh, you just, you, you wouldn't believe.

There's been a very great deal of it behind the scenes that's gone on.

So in a moment, uh, we'll ask Bob what he thinks about that.

Stay right there.

I'm Bob.

I probably only know about a small portion of the funding that you've done, uh, of various

scientists into this area.

But I wonder if you've come to any personal conclusions over the years about survival

of consciousness, uh, an increasingly important question for you and I beyond death.

Um, do you, do you believe that it does survive?

Well, you sure kicked this conversation up a couple of not just inches.

Yeah, I guess I can roll it that way.

Bam, you just knocked it out.

Yeah, this, this is a, this is a holy grail, isn't it, of topics, this really is.

And, and I, I am a person that has difficulty at accepting things on faith alone.

This is the way I am.

And so, um, I'm one that needs quite a few rocks on the pile for convincing and I'm also,

I need more than just one pile of rocks.

I have to have different ways that I, I come about, um, validating, uh, hypothesis or,

some notion or some piece of information that I get and, and so I, I, I always come at

it multiple different ways, different directions.

So for me, on this particular topic, which is so profound, so huge and has so much diverse

meaning behind it, um, I came at it multiple directions.

Now, in the, um, in this area, you're, let's, let's talk with about consciousness

for a minute because we're talking about, does consciousness survive bodily death?

And then we have to say, well, exactly, what do we, what do we know about consciousness?

What is it that we, what is it that we think we really know?

And of course, none of our science, our traditional science can, uh, whether it's quantum,

mechanics or not, uh, it can begin to handle, um, the subject of consciousness.

And it has, if there are so many different, in this whole theater, there are many, many

different, uh, compartments to this whole area.

For example, you know, we can talk about, about, uh, consciousness as it affects things

in micro macro PK or psychometry, mental telepathy, remote viewing, um, the power of prayer,

um, you know, and then we have all kinds of, of, uh, famous authors that have written

about, um, uh, apparitions and poltergeists and, and, um, so we, we have, uh, even, even

the remote viewing that was famously engaged by the CIA for 20 years and friends of ours

who are, you know, have been running, were, ran those programs for SRI, um, and so we,

we have in Bob John and Brenda Dunns' work at pair, uh, on, uh, random, remote, uh, generators,

uh, and, and so we understand all that and we know those people and, and so we know that,

if we look at any one of these kinds of areas and say, is there any substance, any of

this stuff?

I mean, can we find one white crow?

If you find one lousy white crow here, you got a problem from a normal science contact,

and that context you have a problem.

And so what I did is I tried to find as many, our first one white crow and was there a second

one or a third and how did I really know it was a white crow?

And so you, you'd go down that road and, and until finally you say, yeah, there's legitimacy

here because there, there are too many validations of this.

So then you get into, oh gosh, other subjects like past lives, uh, that Brian Weiss and,

and, and, uh, that opens up all kinds because then you find out guys like Harold Sherman

wrote about this a long time ago and then you find out like people like William James

wrote about it even way before that and William James was no slouch.

He was a world class, uh, scientist and researcher in his time, uh, even James Pike.

Uh, so you had these, these kinds of folks and so for me, I went back like I did in the

UFO topic.

In fact, our science advisory board, you may not know this, uh, when we initially formed

nids, it had two pillars of interest, UFOs and consciousness.

Yes.

And we had a population of members on that board that fit in both camps.

So we were blessed to have, uh, uh, like, you know, Ian Stevenson was a member and, and

we had, uh, um, William Morris, I think, um, yes, Melvin Morris, sorry, Melvin Morris

was, uh, Emily Cook, who was also an associate of Ian Stevenson's and other, other people,

uh, very, well, um, very high caliber work, world, world class, research, top people,

yeah, very top, um, and, and you know, we, we talked with people like Larry Dawsey, familiar

with all of his work in the power of prayer and, and how do you validate that, uh, that

that is, you know, do you have double blind studies where you have a placebo situation

and then you're able to validate that, uh, the control group is, is, is securely in place

and, and yet, you know, you're, you're having this, um, this effect.

And is there a difference between whether, uh, the patient, uh, is assisted by the physician

or how many, does it, is there a factor of how many people are praying?

Does that make a difference?

Or the conviction of the people that are praying, including the physician, is there a component

here that's connected to the belief?

How strong is the belief in facilitating this?

And then you get into the operational side of it, um, and, and, um, and poltergeist activity.

Um, and so, I, I think long story short, I do believe in a God force.

I think I come at that from a cosmological, uh, prospect as well as, uh, as a belief in,

that the accumulation of all these other things, uh, suggests that to me very, very, very strongly.

And, and I do think there is a survival of, of consciousness because there are just far too many fields that, uh, tell us,

consciousness can operate independent of time.

It can operate independent of location.

I mean, look at, you know, Edgar Casey, and you don't have to, you know, a person doesn't have to take any one of these things and say,

well, gee, I don't really kind of believe all that.

It really happened that Edgar Casey could do those things and, and so forth.

Well, then move into one of the other topics and research the hell out of that.

And, and see if you go from topic to topic to topic until you come up with a white crow.

And now you've got a problem.

If you're a skeptic, you have a problem here.

Sure.

And now try to explain that.

And so eventually you come to these topics and you find out that, oh my gosh.

Consciousness behaves independent of, of the, uh, any of the explanations of normal science and physics.

And independent of your container, uh, in a sense that in, in several different ways, it exhibits independence of the container that is, is spawning that consciousness.

Did, did you find or do you believe there to be any connection, uh, rubber between consciousness and, uh, the appearance of UFOs?

Oh, yes.

Oh, yeah.

You might say that.

Oh, yes.

Okay.

All right.

Um, I, I want to allow the audience to ask some questions, but I, I really did have to get that in Joe in Baltimore, Maryland says good evening.

I'd like to congratulate you, uh, your guest on his work.

Uh, if I might be so bold, I'd like to encourage him to consider promoting it to the public more.

We need hope in this world more now than ever.

Uh, what you're doing here can give us that, uh, a new dream.

And in this country, uh, Bob, since we've been to the moon and haven't been back, we've lost something.

Uh, something is missing in America.

Would you agree?

Oh, absolutely.

Heck yes.

We're missing inspiration for Christy.

We are missing inspiration in this country.

Yeah, we really are.

And, uh, I guess if it's not going to come from our government or some of it will, uh, certainly the private sector obviously has a lot to offer.

Anybody who's been up to look at your, uh, the photographs that I took and I only got around a little bit, uh, is going to know how very, very serious.

Uh, your effort is it's not just talk.

I have a lot of people on this program who talk to talk show, but, uh, you're doing and, uh, you're really doing.

So we need hope in this country.

And I, I don't know where the next big hope comes from, but maybe it won't be government.

Well, you know what?

Uh, it really government is not.

Government is good at some things and allows you at a lot of others.

And government really is not good at advanced planning.

Uh, our government is good as a reactionary force.

We are a fabulous, fantastic power in a, in a reaction as a, as a point counterpoint kind of reaction.

So we are very good in a sense of emergency.

Uh, we are very good in the sense of a serious challenge.

But we're terrible in advanced planning and we do not provide it.

It's not really appropriate for the United States government to be looked to for providing inspiration.

It just will not.

And historically it has not come from a government.

It comes from the people.

It comes from some action or actions of a group of people in some way that provide inspiration.

And I think that, uh, you know, there's a movement here.

As far as space topic is concerned by a number of companies, not just ours,

but a number of companies.

There's probably, you know, 670 companies here in this country that are trying to do very challenging, unique things that can be if they're successful.

They can be terribly inspirational.

And we know that the age group, there was a recent study.

And it showed that the age group of people between 18 and 24 years of age,

48% of them didn't even know anything about the International Space Station.

The 72% of them were ambivalent about space and couldn't care less, you know, as to whatever happened.

And that's a function that nothing has been going on.

The answer is, art, we need to have some action.

You can't have inspiration if there's no action.

That's right.

You know, how are you supposed to be inspired when there's no action,

when there's nobody doing anything and in our sense with NASA,

it's been the same old same old as far as the shuttle flights and so forth for years and years and years.

There's just real no action.

All right.

Let me, uh, let me go to the phones.

Uh, Marcus and Los Angeles, you're on with Robert Bigelow.

Hey, how are you doing today?

Quite well. Thank you.

Great. Well, I just want to say it's great to have you back in this country.

By the way, it's a couple of months you've been here, but Mr. Bigelow,

I know you have your place out in the desert there as well.

I was wondering if any like, uh,

if you had any plans of having a certain kind of colony or like setting up a country there in the future,

uh, for next generations when the next,

uh, next comment is also,

I'm not sure I got that one straight.

Uh, what was the question again?

Setting up a...

I know you're talking about private businesses and, you know,

our countries and things, uh,

interested in going there.

And I was wondering if there's any plans to like have a, uh,

uh, some kind of country actually or things set up on the station that he is building.

And the next comment would be just basically,

if any secret societies or secret police,

uh, been monitoring him

and having any of these people been talking about, uh,

trying to get that out of themselves.

Okay.

I'm still not sure I got the first question, uh, Robert, did you?

Well, I, let's take a stab at it, I guess.

You know, where, uh,

the space now has evolved into, uh,

less of a question mark in terms of,

can it possibly happen for us?

To, oh my gosh, okay,

uh, it looks like it has a good chance,

and what do we do for,

how do we prepare for success,

and what is the business program like,

and who are those prospective clients going to be,

and so if we look at who's going to populate,

yes, we've looked a lot at who the prospects are to populate these complexes.

And, uh, all of that, however,

is, uh, is orchestrated in the context of a business plan

that would be respectable if you were to present it to a banker,

or to a Wall Street person,

it has to have enough integrity

that is going to stand on its own feet

and be able to be, uh, conscripted,

if necessary, into a stock market offering situation,

or a portion of it,

or that it has borrowing capabilities

and it has the kind of horsepower that that provides.

Now, we, we have not,

um, we don't,

we're not in contact with any kind of,

uh, vestitarian groups that, uh,

uh, are overseeing what we do,

and probably they're so good at that,

that we don't even,

we're not aware that they are, uh,

peering into, into what we're doing.

We're, we're fairly transparent, you know,

we, folks wouldn't have to look too hard,

the NSA, or anybody else,

into what we're doing, the CIA,

I mean, we're, we're pretty transparent,

and-

Have you become aware of any surveillance at all?

Well, we're, we know that folks know that we exist,

and, yeah, and, and, uh,

but I think people understand where we're coming from.

I think people understand that,

that we're trying to do something,

uh, for this country,

we're trying to do something for people in other countries,

and we're trying to do, uh,

a benefit to, to human development globally.

This, this isn't just a story about,

um, one company, our company,

we're part of a family of companies that, uh,

are trying to fulfill,

um, something for, for the private sector,

for private, generated from private enterprise,

that maybe can, can take this out of the purview,

of government owned and operated and controlled activity.

Is there going to become an official consortium, uh,

of private companies?

Well, we're all kind of like a gang, a herd of cats, you know?

We all kind of go off in our own direction,

and, and, and, yeah, we do have membership.

Uh, there is an organization that, uh,

a lot of us belong to.

Uh, there's a certain sense of self-preservation

from Uncle Sam, you know?

Yes.

Because we're, we're small,

and, and it's easy to get stepped on and crushed

and, and, uh, pounded into the sand,

uh, and Uncle Sam may not even be aware that,

uh, he's done that, you know?

So, yeah, we, we do have, uh,

uh, we do have an organization that, yeah.

That was, uh, the last color road,

and I don't know if you have the Secret Handshaker.

Uh, ha, ha, ha.

Uh, no, you know, some of the,

some of the signals like that that we say

for other people will know what can be aired.

Okay.

All right.

Paul and Missouri,

you're on with Robert Bigelow.

Hi.

Avening art.

Avening Mr. Bigelow.

Uh, I had a couple of points that were interesting for you.

First, let me go ahead and identify myself.

I'm Carl,

and Hallsville, Missouri.

I'm sorry.

It's, uh, Paul.

Aven, uh, K-Zero-A-Z-I.

And that's 30 years.

And that's, uh, uh, K-Zero-A-Z-I.

Okay.

Hold on.

We can't really give call letters on the air.

So, go ahead and ask your question.

Okay.

Uh, yeah.

Uh, I was going to throw a religious element in here.

Now, I'm not particularly sure if, uh, God, uh,

uh, if it's, if it's a standard religion format

through a lot of religions that God created

as in his own image, or if that's just a particular, uh,

tenet of the Christian religion.

But if it is through out, uh, several religions, uh,

did not, God, as a creation and, uh,

stem self, give man the power to create.

And God, being able to create reality in which we now live,

do we not perhaps have the power to create

as a collective consciousness, or perhaps even individually,

our own realities?

And...

All right.

Uh, give it a try.

Well, yeah.

Actually, there are some physicists and scientists

that have, uh, kind of come to the conclusion that, uh,

there, there is a God force that is, uh,

it has a conscious aspect to it.

And, uh, in fact, there's a new book out by Bernie H.

who is a zero-point expert as is how it put off.

And in his new book, he, it's something like the God theory.

And he espouses the notion that, that a lot of us have,

that if there is a universal God force, uh,

that was prior to the Big Bang existing and,

and caused that information to take place,

that probably, that permeates every, every single,

organic and non-organic substance in the entire universe,

that all of it, every single thing in the entire universe,

is part of that, uh, in God force.

And that way, that God force in theory has an,

as, as able to express itself,

by being part of every living and non-living thing.

I wonder if there's any limit to the creation

that we're going to be allowed to do.

Well, I, I would guess, there would be.

Yeah, in other words, uh, when we get to creating life

ourselves, we may not be that far from it.

All right, Robert Bigelow is my guest.

We're going to take a break here and come back and take your calls.

I'm Art Bell.

God, I'd love to take a ride.

I'd love it.

Matter of fact, a friend of mine contacted, uh,

Zero G company that takes, uh, 727s up.

And it just so happens that 727s going to be in the Las Vegas area

in September.

And I may take a ride.

That may be as close as I'll ever get,

but what an opportunity that would be, huh?

So there you've got it.

Why not be interesting to experience Zero G, wouldn't it?

Robert Bigelow is my guest. He'll be right back.

Seems to me that if some of you were to contact Congress,

your Congress person,

perhaps those on the Space and Science Committees,

and, um,

sort of make a general request that those who are reaching out,

like Bob Bigelow,

that the path be greased a little,

a little bit better for them because it's, it's rough going.

It's really rough going.

We had a long, long conversation about that.

And I'm not sure exactly where the pressure is applied.

So I guess a general pressure in Congress would be a good idea.

And let, let them have a good hard look

at what people like Mr. Bigelow are doing.

David in Tempe Arizona,

you're on the air with Robert Bigelow.

Thank you, Mr. Bell.

I'm a past guest, the guy who wrote a book called Sunstroke.

No, okay.

Oh, Mr. Bell.

Special sincere congratulations to you

for your outstanding lifetime achievement award.

Oh, well, thank you.

Oh, my gosh.

You have indeed set the highest standards for excellence in radio broadcast.

Thank you very much.

I mean, this is David who wrote a book called Sunstroke,

which was about a satellite

that returned energy,

a science fiction book,

about a satellite that returned energy to Earth.

And of course, it's science fiction.

So in that, in that book,

the satellite began to wander.

And of course, the field of energy began to burn its path

across buildings and humanity

and everything in its way.

David Kagan, is that correct?

That's correct, Mr. Bell.

Thank you so very much.

And I would like to change the subject matter a little bit here.

I have a couple questions for your outstanding steam gas, Mr. Bigelow.

Mr. Bigelow?

Yes.

I'm on cloud nine speaking with you, sir.

Believe me.

Well, I greatly admire your stunning accomplishments.

Both in science and technology,

and especially my gosh,

Genesis one.

Wow.

You know, you do remind me a little of built-lear,

but what you're doing is far larger and infinitely more important for humanity.

And as I mentioned, Mr. Bell,

I've got a couple of questions for you.

So I had David.

Thank you.

Does Bigelow Aerospace have any plans to lease orbital labs

for doing R&D research

and perhaps manufacturing pharmaceuticals in microgravity

drugs that could possibly lead to miraculous cures of diseases on Earth?

Pharmaceutical applications has always been the category that people have referred to most often

as applicable to that location.

And we very definitely intend to target that entire community as prospective clients.

Fabulous.

Fabulous.

That no doubt there will be a great boom to humanity, perhaps in the near future.

Wonderful news.

Now, my second question is,

would you at all be interested in participating in a feature film thriller

that does indeed spotlight Bigelow Aerospace in a highly positive way?

In other words, you guys saved the world from a different kind of catastrophe

that could actually happen.

Would you at all be interested in something like that?

Is that kind of resonated all with you, sir?

Oh, not, you know, to be honest, David,

it probably doesn't because we're kind of in our own little thriller every day, every week and month

and trying to do what we're about,

but I thank you for the offer and the invitation.

However, the concept of becoming as public as you can be, Robert,

under the circumstances is probably a good one.

That's true.

That is true for multiple reasons.

I guess.

All right, Anne and Walnut Creek, California, you're on with Robert.

I was afraid I was going to have to follow that because I wasn't going to be anywhere near as complimentary.

Is that all right?

All right, and I'm not feeling negative, but I am feeling questioning.

You know, I think it's wonderfully exciting and I guess the best word to describe Mr. Bigelow in my mind is adventurer.

Glossy explorer.

And what I'm concerned about, and I know you are too,

and this is not the first time that I've commented about this on your program,

I'm concerned that there will be an inadvertent return to earth,

not necessarily in Mr. Bigelow's exploring, but in some ones,

of, say, microbes that could wipe out all life on earth.

And I think that already the NASA people have admitted that they were careless in the beginning.

And, of course, their use of the word sterilization of spaceships,

I don't know what techniques they're talking about, whether it's extreme temperatures or chemicals or whatever.

But I mean, even on earth right now, we have an example of microbes that cannot be killed, namely prions,

which as far as we can tell cannot be killed by extremes of temperature or chemicals.

And, you know, there are about four different categories of ways that we could destroy ourselves.

And that's one of them.

And, you know, and then a couple of others are from our not applying our energy and brains and money

to trying to prevent things like not looking out for asteroids, you know, instead of waging war.

So I just wonder what Mr. Bigelow thinks about this and how concerned he is about it.

Okay, well, let's stick with the microbe question. I'm not sure how much of an issue that is with Leo craft or even,

or any other craft that are doing anything other than going to the moon or Mars,

then you'd certainly have that concern. But who knows, Robert?

Yeah, I think you have two sources for that concern.

One is something that was brought back from another planet or body in some way

that had some contaminant with it. Now, we have experienced on this planet for almost five billion years,

four and a half billion years, meteors and meteorites hitting this planet of sizable quantities.

And they were sufficient mass that survived reentry and did not burn up.

And so it suggests that if there are microbes in indigenous to those kinds of foreign bodies that they somehow are acceptable,

if in fact there were living organisms inside meteors and that sort of structure.

The other is the quarantine process that would be automatic if you were to come from Mars to Earth and from the moon with any materials.

Of course, those were all quarantined from the moon. About 875 pounds of material was brought back and so that was all quarantined.

The other area though is something that would be, let's suppose, created inadvertently or intentionally on board, space complex.

And we've had to look at that. And so what we've decided is that we have rules of behavior that we would then implement these rules

that are pertains to what activities are being functioned on board, these systems, these modules.

And could they be used for military purposes, let's say, or some sort of harmful intent?

Now, so the thing of it is that we're not going to be the only ones creating these complexes or appear at a time.

Other countries are going to, other companies are going to, we're not going to be alone in an isolated situation forever on this.

I think, in the macro sense, what you've got to say to yourself is this. Look, there are probably, and I think, you and I have talked about this before.

I felt, well, there's always two kinds of species in the entire universe.

There are those that have command and control over robust facilities and space.

And there are those species that have not and that do not.

And I think if you say, well, which group has probably a greater enhancement of a future in all respects,

is probably the group that has both command and control over robust large facilities in space-based locations,

as well as terrestrial locations, as opposed to the one that only other has half the menu.

It's like having a periodic table, one group has a periodic table, 175, and the other group has 115.

So it isn't fair, so you might think, well, gee, the group with the access to the space-based facilities

ought to be able then to innovate positive things, not just negative, but positive things,

and perhaps enhance the length of duration of life, find cure for cancer, muscular dystrophy, who knows?

But, you know, so maybe there's a holy grail or two or three waiting, unbeknownst to us,

for significant enhancement of physical problems that we have now,

that maybe other species do not have those because they long ago solved them.

Well, if I were to be asked where I think pharmaceutical companies would be more likely to be developing positive things

for the human race, perhaps curing diseases in a spacecraft like yours, or any U.S. government spacecraft,

I'd have a real quick answer. Bob in Kansas City, Missouri, you're on with Robert Bigelow.

Hey, how are you, Art? And Mr. Bigelow, I'm enjoying this program tonight.

As retired biochemist and drug scientist, and now a science fiction writer,

I've got a couple of questions for you, and I realize you've had a lot of difficulties with the government

on getting some of your programs off the ground, and governments are easy to take power away,

but they're kind of hard to get it back to the people.

You mentioned that you're having a lot of bureaucratic red tape.

Have you been approached, or have you considered approaching?

Second tier or third tier countries, who I'm sure would more than love to have a spaceport as part of their program,

to set your system up, or for that matter, even getting into band and oil platform,

or a natural gas platform outside the 12 mile limit, or you wouldn't have to deal with these crazy bureaucrats,

and I'll take my answer offline, sir.

Okay. Well, in a short answer as no, we have not.

This is the first year we have actually started to promote what or even expose what our business program is.

We've kept quiet for all this time, and we've decided because of last year's activity

with a number of companies that had asked us to sign letters of intent and memorandums of agreement

on the relationships with them, that we would do more harm than good if we postponed this for another year or two.

So we have not had any engagement of conversations with other countries yet that might occur this year, however.

But I'm not sure I quite got the question relative to the 12 mile limit,

unless it is for a launch facility like space sea launches, where sea launch goes to an equatorial area on the ocean,

and then launches a zenith vehicle from that location.

But certainly, we will be most anxious to contract with folks who provide user-friendly

spaceport locations and facilities as well as the transportation facilities.

Okay. From Toronto, Canada, Chris, you're on the air with Robert Bigelow.

Hi. Hi. Our great show today. Congratulations on the award.

Thank you.

Mr. Bigelow, there's one kind of giant elephant in the room that I haven't really heard you address,

and it's probably one of the holy grails of the physical problems that you mentioned earlier.

And that is artificial gravity being in the space hotel.

I can't imagine a lot of people being, you know, all of a sudden used to suddenly floating

and going through 30, 60 days, however the lease is, just floating around.

So how would you figure to solve the problem using artificial gravity or training courses or what?

I'll take my answer off. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Thank you. Yes. Well, our first target market, of course, is not the tourist sector per se.

It is the professional astronaut community to expand those cores, expand those numbers,

and those folks are more accustomed to expecting that environment and what it has to offer.

And secondly, if we go to serving prime clients, international science corporations,

and even nations as clients, they may want payload specialists or they may not.

So in that case, our own astronaut core will function incidentally free of charge.

The experiments that they want to implement.

But if they do want payload specialists, then we will train and fly those people as well.

So they will probably be more orientated than the novice would be in both of those instances.

The tourist is in a novice category.

And to date, there have not been all that many, for sure.

And however, if Anusa Ansari is any example, she is a tremendous book's woman for tourism.

And she was ecstatic about the experiences she had.

And most of the other experiences have felt the same way that they want to go back.

And so I think that having artificial gravity is probably not a prerequisite for getting these structures to be successful.

Is it something you considered?

It is. To avoid the quarriolous effect of AG, you need to have a structure of a certain rotation speed and spin.

And those RPMs are a function of the entire length of that structure.

If it were more of a mile in length and sort of a large barbell, dumbbell kind of configuration, that AG is produced better at the extremities of that structure.

And then you have docking concerns because you need either to hold a center core stable for docking purposes or it has to be in motion with that structure at the same speed.

There may be times when that rotation needs to stop and then you have to queue it up again.

That is more for more advanced deep space missions than probably is necessary in the first generation of Leo operations.

But you might consider that for Amar's expedition.

Do we know a lot about the prolonged biological effects of weightlessness on human beings?

We know a fair amount. We know that there is a degradation of muscle mass and bone supply at a rate of 1% per month and then it tends to level off.

However, that can be mitigated by aggressive exercise.

That is a direct relationship with the amount of exercise that is imposed on the physical structure.

The reaction is positive to that exercise.

But the good news is that it does taper off and does it actually level off so that we can imagine a trip to Mars and back?

I think so because we already have folks both Russian and American that have ventured to a year in space,

which would be beyond the duration of weightlessness that you would have to endure going to Mars.

Of course, if you had a system that could get you there in a month and a half or two months or so, so much the better.

Well, I would like to congratulate you.

We are coming to the end of the program. When it is over and it is over, there is nothing we can do.

But I would like to congratulate you on doing what a lot of people have dreamed about doing and you are not dreaming, you are doing it.

So let's stay in touch. I really want to get that ham repeater up there of Bob.

So let's look into that one and of course we will have you back, obviously, with what you are doing.

The story will continue forever.

Thank you, Art. This has been a great fun tonight.

The four hours went by so fast. I am still jazzed up and not the least bit sleepy.

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

Good night, Bob. That is Robert Bigelow. He is really one of a kind, folks.

That is it for tonight. We will be back here tomorrow night, same time, same station from the high desert. Good night.