Inflatable stations.....

> I'd like to ask some of you engineering and MBA types to consider some
> applications of structures made from strings of Bigelow habs.

I have both, so lets see.....

> Say, for
> example, a solar power satellite company assigns you to figure out how
many
> inflatable habs it would take to put together a crew quarters for on-orbit
> SPS assembly and maintenance.

Say 10 people needed FTE, say 30m3 each, say 3x that for all stuff needed up
there - c 1000m3, if a cylinder thats about 4m radius, 20m length.

> How would they be arranged for different crew
> size and workspace assumptions? How small a torus is practical, and how
> many Bigelow habs would be necessary to build it?

I think for such a small thing a Cylinder is best to start building.

The smallest Torus, assuming you want stable 1G on teh outer rim, has to be
c 1km radius to rotate at 1 rpm (apparently the highest you can go before
some people get motion sickness)

You'd probably have the Bigelow cylinder as one of the parts of the Torus
and carry on inflating more until you had enough to join them up and then
still keep on breaking into the existing torus with new inflatables till you
got the desired size. Maybe it would be done around some form of exo or indo
skeleton with say a shuttle tube in it?