It'll be like a party bouncey house on steroids: Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, is asking for 16 billion rubles -- or $440 million -- to develop inflatable space station habitats.

The proposed program was submitted to the Russian government last week and contains the blueprints for a number of ambitious projects, including moon bases and super-heavy lift rockets, the Interfax news agency is reporting.

Two inflatable space station modules, which would likely be created by surrounding a flexible air bladder with interwoven layers of Kevlar and Mylar, are generally lighter and cheaper to launch than metal-cylinder components.

Similar modules were tested by United States-based Bigelow Aerospace in 2006 and 2007.

Actually, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is also looking into building its own inflatable modules for the International Space Station and future space station projects.

According to the Bigelow company Website, the idea of utilizing expandable -- or inflatable -- spacecraft and space components "is not a new idea ... the history of inflatable space systems goes back to the very beginning of America's space program."

In fact, the aerospace outfit says in a posting, "the inflatable Echo 1 and Echo 2, the world's first passive communications satellites, were one of the inaugural projects taken on in 1958 by a new federal agency called NASA."

Roscosmos, which faces an uncertain future in the International Space Station program because of its country's ongoing involvement in Ukraine, says the inflatable module it wants to build will feature a pressurized compartment volume of 300 cubic meters that would be ready for launch in 2021 and able to last at least five years in space.

So far, it's not clear if Russian space officials are envisioning the modules as add-ons to the ISS program or as part of a different space station entirely.

However, the plans for the inflatable units have been discussed with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the Russian space industry.

Roscosmos has so far declined to publicly comment on the strategy document, which hasn't yet been officially approved.