Robert Bigelow

Real estate

From the late 1960s[7] through the 1990s, Bigelow developed commercial real estate hotels, motels and apartments.

In his real estate career, Bigelow built approximately 15,000 units and purchased another 8,000. For most of his career, he held on to almost everything he bought, but he did sell before the 2008 financial crisis. In 2013, Bigelow reflected on this: "People just really wanted to throw money away, so that was lucky."[7]

Budget Suites of America

Bigelow owns Budget Suites of America, an extended-stay apartment chain founded in 1987.[8] Its rooms are primarily suites featuring a full kitchen. Budget Suites owns three hotels in Phoenix, Arizona; five in Las Vegas, Nevada; ten in Dallas, Texas; and one in San Antonio, Texas.[9]

Aerospace

In 1999, Bigelow founded Bigelow Aerospace.[10]

Bigelow had indicated he planned to spend up to US$500 million to develop the first commercial space station with a goal of the station costing 33% of the US$1.5 billion that NASA expended on a single Space Shuttle mission.[11][12] Bigelow Aerospace has launched two experimental space modules, Genesis I in 2006 and Genesis II in 2007, and had planned for full-scale space habitats to be used as orbital hotels, research labs and factories.[13]

In 2013, Bigelow indicated that the reason he went into the commercial real estate business was to obtain the requisite resources to be able to fund a team developing space destinations.[14] In October 2017, Bigelow announced that he planned to put an inflatable "space hotel" into orbit by 2022.[15] The plan was part of a partnership with United Launch Alliance, and the project was estimated to cost US$2.3 billion in total. The cost of a three-day stay in this spatial hotel was estimated at 5 million dollars.[16]

In April 2016, Bigelow's BEAM module was launched to the International Space Station[14] on the eighth SpaceX cargo resupply mission.[17]

In March 2020, Bigelow Aerospace laid off all 88 members of staff and halted operations after over 20 years of business, in a move that was partially caused by the coronavirus pandemic.[18]

In March 2021, he sued NASA for US$1.05 million, alleging he was not paid according to contract for product testing and development.[19]

Anomalies research

In 1995, Bigelow founded the National Institute for Discovery Science to fund the research and study of various fringe sciences and paranormal topics, most notably ufology.[20] The organization researched cattle mutilation and black triangle reports, ultimately attributing the latter to secretive advanced aircraft operated by the military.[21] The institute was disbanded in 2004.

In 1996, Bigelow purchased Skinwalker Ranch, a 512 acre cattle ranch located in Utah that is the site of purported paranormal phenomena, such as inter-dimensional shape-shifters,[22] for $200,000. In 2016, Bigelow sold the ranch to Brandon Fugal for $4 million.[23]

In December 2017, Bigelow was reported by the New York Times to have urged Senator Harry Reid to initiate what became the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a government study which operated from 2007 to 2012 tasked with the study of UFOs.[24][25] According to the New York Times, Bigelow said he was “absolutely convinced” that extraterrestrial life exists and that extraterrestrials have visited Earth.[26]

Consciousness studies

In June 2020, Bigelow founded the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS) to support investigations into life after death.[5] In January 2021, the institute put up an award of US$1 million asking for essays arguing for existence of a life after death.[27] The institute awarded the first-place $500,000 prize to Jeffrey Mishlove, the second-place prize to Pim van Lommel, and the third-place prize to Leo Ruickbie.[28]

Political contributions

Bigelow has made political donations to conservative Republican candidates.[31][32] In July 2022, he donated $10 million to Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, which was the single biggest donation of his re-election bid.[33][34] Bigelow has contributed over $25 million[35] to groups and causes supporting Joe Lombardo's candidacy for governor of Nevada. Campaign finance experts believe this may be the most a single donor has spent on a statewide race in modern history.[36] In January 2024 he stated in an interview that he had donated to Donald Trump, "I gave him $1 million towards his legal fees a few weeks ago. I made a promise to give him $20 million more, that will be to the super PAC..."[37]