MarsBlog.net

Mark Whittington links to a Jeff Foust post referring to a Las Vegas Mercury article predicting that Bigelow Aerospace will be making an announcement about the company’s secretive space-related project.

It sounds exciting, until you actually read the Mercury article. It’s a ways down, among a laundry list of predictions for the new year:

Bigelow isn’t talking at all about his plans for the development of a revolutionary space habitat, but we predict the new year will result in blockbuster revelations about the progress being made at his secretive North Las Vegas aerospace facility. It’s not too much of a stretch to also predict that NASA bigshots will play a prominent role in the eventual release from the Bigelow organization.

It sounds more like a horoscope than an educated guess at what might happen — that is, a prediction of something plenty likely to happen, in vague enough terms to permit post-hoc nostradamification. For instance, the company has (last I knew) licensed the Trans-Hab technology from NASA — any major space project by Bigelow will probably involve inflatable structures, and therefore NASA.

Not that I would be unhappy to see such a development, mind you. I just think this particular news item is not all it’s cracked up to be.

(Note also the writer of the prediction.)