Fly me to the moon: space hotel sees 2012 opening

Well - that is not so far away!

And we can stay in Moon Hotel while the Mayan Prophecy unveils!

YAY!

REUTERS

"Galactic Suite," the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes.

Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay.

During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Company director Xavier Claramunt says the three-bedroom boutique hotel's joined up pod structure, which makes it look like a model of molecules, was dictated by the fact that each pod room had to fit inside a rocket to be taken into space.

Oh wait a minute - a 3-day stay will be 4 million dollars.

Well, I guess that is one hotel not many shall be staying in.

For 3 days.



[edit on 11/8/07 by Souljah]

is it possible to actually see the sun rise 15 times a day? How is that? $40 mill to get up in space nowadays and $4mill for 3 day stay, sure I got that kind of money.

I just got done reading an article about this. Very interesting idea, but I just don't see it happening. First of all, it is very cost prohibitive. $4,000,000 is a big chunk of change, more than most people have. Also, I think the construction time frame is overly ambitious. A space hotel in 5 years? I just don't see it.

I popped around to a few sites... buddy claims to be well-financed (I can't confirm or deny that) and has $3B up front. Figures a market that can draw from 43,000 who "could" afford such a jaunt. 15 - 18 sunrises are possible depending on orbit. No real mention of the hardware. There is no real surplus of "uphill" rides either... all the launch folks would seem to be booked.

Buddy's "Galactic" website is... either avant-garde or bizzare or maybe both. He could be a brillant "nutter" (which is fine with me). If he's for real 2012 isn't that far off. His older architectural site is "normal". Could be "space-junk", but the idea is there. I will watch this with some interest.

Some links: Architectual Site... the Galatic Suite homepage and the concept page from the same site here. Sort of "arty" a bit like the DaVinci Project early on... I suggest they land in St. Paul Alberta at Paul Hellyer's pad.

Orbital hotel in 60 or 70 months? Maybe a disposable one using inflatable "baggie-rooms"... wouldn't want to be around for an MMOD hit though. Yikes! The whole "contracts to build and service it" is not there yet.

Cheers,

Vic