Doubt Cast on Bigelow Aerospace agreement with Australia

Back on October 20th, in my SpaceBoomerang post here, I reported that Australia had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Bigelow Aerospace – quoting an article from Space.com here.

A separate article on Spacenews.com here  also mentions the agreements, and is even mentioned on the Bigelow Aerospace website .

However, SpaceBoomerang has come to understand that there may not be such an agreement with the Australian Government. If this is the case, it is quite surprising to see Robert Bigelow quoted as saying (Source: Space News)

Robert Bigelow, founder and chief executive of North Las Vegas, Nev.-based Bigelow Aerospace, said the company has signed memoranda of understanding with the governments of Australia, Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, Sweden and the United Kingdom. These agreements are not financial commitments, he said, adding that he hopes to secure such commitments by 2012.

SpaceBoomerang calls upon both Bigelow Aerospace to clarify whether such an agreement exists or not, and whether they have been misquoted in these articles.