On an economic approach to the development of flexible-wall shelters for space exploration and utilization

The concept of inflatable structures for space construction and operations has a long and distinguished history, reaching to the very first proposal in the 1950s, for applications to tanks and to different forms of habits. The Note presents a summary of the main wall structural elements as they have evolved during the last 40 odd years, and of the underlying trends. It is argued that for an economic development of inflatable inhabited space structures, the realization of the four classical functionals ought to be further modularized. As an example, it presents a set of standardized sublaminates, and introduces some criteria for guiding the selection of the kind and of the number of standard elements in function of the basic requirements of the final object. This approach could reduce materials development and qualification costs and achieve relatively large economies of scale in the laminates procurement, while covering a range of applications.