Posted by jburk to Inflatables at July 4, 1999 12:00 PM

Last December TransHab was inflated for the first time. In a control room overlooking a giant vacuum chamber at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, a dozen engineers sat patiently, trading jokes and sci-fi movie trivia, while NASA technicians meticulously adjusted temperature and pressure valves, and the three-story, $200 million house designed for the first Mars colonists slowly took shape.