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A new startup wants to launch a luxury space hotel into orbit
Companies like Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are aiming to carry tourists into space within the next few years. But, if these tourists want more than just a flight (and they are able to pay the hefty fees that are sure to go along with such a request), where can they go? That's what Orion Span plans to tackle. This week, the company announced that it wants to put its luxury space hotel Aurora Station into orbit in 2021, to begin receiving guests in 2022.
A vacation worth a cool million: five days in the CSS space hotel
Boarding the Soyuz rocket, seven hotel patrons will be asked to fork over £500,000 ($825,000) for the flight and another £100,000 ($165,000) for a five-night stay -- who needs family road trips when you can vacation in space? Russian company Orbital Technologies announced plans to construct a Commercial Space Station (CSS) by 2016, offering guests an unforgettable vacation and kick-ass view of Earth below. Way more fashionable than the ISS 62 miles away, customers can lounge in horizontal or vertical beds, enjoy some astronaut ice cream or chill with this guy.
Russian firm hopes to have luxury space hotel in orbit by 2016
You know what they say: "another day, another hypothetical space hotel." Fans of the space tourism (mostly Lance Bass and a handful of gazillionaires) know that these things pop up every few years, so one can be a little skeptical about the plans recently announced by Russia-based Orbital Technologies to put a seven room guest house into orbit, where it would follow the same path as the International Space Station. While CEO Sergei Kostenko does mention things like well-appointed suites and food cooked up by celebrity chefs, it's not entirely clear that the firm has the funding to build the thing or even who will be doing the construction, although Energia (Russia's state-controlled spacecraft manufacturer) has been mooted as the project's general contractor. But this isn't merely a rich man's plaything -- as Kostenko points out, it could be used as a place for astronauts to flee to in case the ISS comes under alien attack (although he didn't say it in exactly those words).
Pricey Galactic Suite space hotel aims for 2012 opening
Believe it or not, booking a hotel in space may become a reality sooner rather than later, and if things go as planned, the Galactic Suite will actually be welcoming in guests sans gravity in just five short years. Folks who make the trip will be able to "see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their rooms by sticking themselves to the walls," and while spas with floating water sure sounds like something we'd be interested in, the nightly fees are quite literally out of this world. How much? Try $4 million for a three-day stay -- better bring your camera, eh?[Via PCWorld, image courtesy of MSNBC]
Experimental space hotel hurtled into orbit
Although we're not quite ready to pony up for a ticket to space just yet, billionaire Robert Bigelow is thinking way into the future by trialing a space hotel. Dubbed Genesis II, the inflatable module could eventually be used as a "hotel in space" or double as a manned space station, and considering that it only inflates once it settles in orbit, the cost of launching is substantially decreased. The experimental craft was successfully launched on board a Russian rocket, and has since established communications and "beamed back a series of images of its expanding solar panels." This endeavor is just the beginning, however, as Bigelow envisions a "full-scale space hotel" to be named Nautilus, and if you're interested in helping out (and making $50 million on the side), you've got three years to "design a craft capable of carrying five people to a height of 250 miles."[Image courtesy of Bigelow Aerospace]
