I missed the afternoon sessions to attend a press conference and media tour of the Bigelow control center and assembly area. Mr. Bigelow and several of his top managers were very generous in answering questions for over an hour and then spending a couple of hours showing us around and answering one-on-one questions. (Some details they wouldn't go into, of course, but in general they were quite open about what they are doing.)

After I got back, I went out for a big dinner with the wife and goddaughter and then we had what seemed an even bigger dessert at the Cheesecake Factory. So I'm too full and tired now to post much.

Thankfully, Alan Boyle has already posted a lengthy account of the highlights of the visit: Inside the spaceship factory - Cosmic Log - July.20.06.

[Update July.21.06: Leonard David and Jeff Foust have now posted reports as well:
* Bigelow Aerospace's Genesis-1 Performing Well - SPACE.com - July.21.06
* A visit to Bigelow Aerospace - Personal Spaceflight - July.21.06
]

A couple of items I'll add:
* I asked Mr. Bigelow if they would accept proposals from university groups who wanted to place experiments on future modules. He said in principle yes, but they only wanted ones that would provide some visual interest to public observers via the camera monitors.
* In response to a question from me about the leak tightness of the modules, a manager told me that if one their modules achieves the leak rate they desiged it for, it would remain pressurized for 150 years!
* They will eventually open a much larger control room with higher walls with more screens plus a large visitors gallery to watch the action.
* Mr. Bigelow gave much credit to the original NASA TransHab project. He was looking for space investments around 1998 and when he saw that TransHab was going to be canceled, he couldn't believe it and quickly decided to pick up where they left off.
* However, he also made clear that the BA team had made many, many changes and improvements to the NASA work and they have dozens of patents of their own now. A manager later told me that NASA had never gotten as far as a working inflatable module that could have been launched. He pointed out some vents that they had added, for example, to release air that remained between the layers after the module was packed. Without the vents, the trapped air might have popped the sides as the rocket ascended.

The whole Bigelow operation is very impressive and a great example of what a private space venture can accomplished both in cooperation with NASA and on its own.