Space Hotel Takes Reservations
Space (Global Adventures): If you are looking for a vacation above it all, the space hotel could hold the top spot on your must-see vacation list. The long-planned orbiting complex is on track to open in 2012, according to the owners.
Space vacationers can book a three-night stay at the Galactic Suite Space Resort for $4.4 million, the Barcelona based company said. So far 43 paying guests have reserved a spot, while more than 200 have expressed interest, said Xavier Claramunt, CEO of Spanish-based Galactic Suite Ltd.
If it becomes reality, guests can look forward to traveling around the world every 90 minutes and seeing the sun rise 15 times a day. Galactic Suite plans to transport its travelers to space via Russian rockets from a spaceport yet to be built on a Caribbean island. Guests will undergo an eight-week training course in the Caribbean prior to launch, according to Claramunt.
About 1.5 days into the space trip, visitors will arrive at the hotel, which is expected to be constructed of connecting pods around a central hub. Each pod will be able to hold four guests and two astronaut-pilots.
Critics have questioned whether the hotel can really be ready so soon, and whether the company has enough money to see the plan through. Claramunt said an anonymous billionaire has fronted the company $3 billion to finance the project.
A number of startup companies have sprung up in recent years, hoping to create a space tourism industry. At the end of the 1990s, MirCorp, a private venture in charge of the former Russian space station, began seeking potential space tourists to visit Mir in order to offset some of its maintenance costs.
After the Columbia disaster, space tourism on the Russian Soyuz program was temporarily put on hold, because Soyuz vehicles became the only available transport to the International Space Station (ISS). However, in 2006, space tourism was resumed.
More affordable suborbital space tourism is viewed as a money-making proposition by several other companies, including Space Adventures, Virgin Galactic, Starchaser, Blue Origin, Armadillo Aerospace, XCOR Aerospace, Rocketplane Limited, the European "Project Enterprise”, and others. Most are proposing vehicles that make suborbital flights peaking at an altitude of 100-160 kilometers. As of November 2007 Virgin Galactic had pre-sold nearly 200 seats for their suborbital space tourism flights, according to the company's president.
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