According to MSNBC, the first space
hotel is set to open in 2012, and a three night stay—complete
with with eight weeks in a tropical locale—will run $4.4 million.
During their stay, guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 80 minutes. They would wear Velcro suits so they can crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.
Galactic Suite Ltd's CEO Xavier Claramunt, a former aerospace engineer, said the project will put his company at the forefront of an infant industry with a huge future ahead of it, and forecast space travel will become common in the future.
"It's very normal to think that your children, possibly within 15 years, could spend a weekend in space," he told Reuters Television.
A nascent space tourism industry is beginning to take shape with construction underway in New Mexico of Spaceport America, the world's first facility built specifically for space-bound commercial customers and fee-paying passengers.
Will commerce manage what government has failed to accomplish and
take humanity to the stars? Sure, it's a long shot, but this is
how so many innovations first appear—as exotic experiences for
the super rich that eventually work their way down to the masses.
I don't know if the next generation will really be able to spend
a relaxing weekend orbiting the Earth, but I have a lot more
confidence in the mad dreams of sci-fi geek billionaires than I
do in the bland bureaucratic machinations of government-run space
agencies.
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OPINION: First Space Hotel Set to Open in 2012
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Ya
Because it's not like the big wastful government has done a single thing to get us into space! I mean geez! Those "bland" government agencies are soo stupid too not spend more time worrying about how to put our children into space to get them out of our hair for one bloody weekend! I mean come one! Can a brother get a break!?
I can't believe those bland govmnt types haven't thought of this before! I mean, seriously, who needs science or that big giant waste we call Hubble, or those lame solar system probes like Gemini, Galileo, and the like... What we should have been doing is Space Tourism!
Ahh but no... Capitalism had to come in and save the day from science!
Seriously, who do you think funded the last 60 years of research on how to get to space, it wasn't the goverm... Oh wait... Never mind!
...
Honestly, I think this is totally cool, but it was NOT the result of simple "commerce", it is only possible because of 60 years of government funded science and exploration that would have NEVER been possible if left up to private commerce!
Also, I'm highly skeptical about this hotel in the sky by 2012 , and sending your kids to space vacation in anywhere near 15 years... Spoken like a true businessman that has no idea how long a venture lie this would take and also how long it would take to make it affordable enough to get to within a 100K which seems to be the "space tourism" benchmark for popular consumption.
How about some "reason" here!
I agree that "so many innovations first appear—as exotic experiences for the super rich that eventually work their way down to the masses", but THIS is not the case! This "exotic experience for the super rich" is only the next step in bringing space travel to the masses, not HOW space tourism is created as if out of thin air.
Furthermore, this whole commercial space travel push was non-existant until the Ansari X-Prize was created to give something like 10 million to whomever could build a cheap plane that could get into suborbital flight . It was not just all of the sudden thought up by rich capitalists.
- Rice klowN
November 3, 2009 4:10PM
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