via DVICE Atom Feed by Kevin Hall on 11/3/09
Come 2012 (you know, providing the world doesn't end) you may have another venue for booking a luxury hotel: space. That's the hope of the Barcelona-based architects behind the Galactic Suites, anyway, who say that they are on track with building a space hotel.
Each three-night stay at the Galactic Suites will cost a whopping $4.4 million, though that also gets you an eight-week training course on a tropical island. Hopefully you've let your vacation days pile up, because that's a pretty big commitment.
You'd wear a velcro-covered suit while on board the station to aid with mobility, and you'd get to watch 15 "sunrises" as you orbit around the Earth every 80 minutes. Each hotel pod will have room for four, as well as two astronaut pilots — who, hopefully, will have their own space to retreat to.
Sure, it still sounds a little crazy, but it's all part of a big space tourism push hinging on companies such as Virgin Galactic and the construction of Spaceport America in New Mexico.
"It's very normal to think that your children, possibly within 15 years, could spend a weekend in space," Galactic Suites CEO Xavier Claramunt told Reuters Television. "When the passengers arrive in the rocket, they will join it for 3 days, rocket and capsule. With this we create in the tourist a confidence that he hasn't been abandoned. After 3 days the passenger returns to the transport rocket and returns to earth." Claramunt doesn't plan to use Spaceport America initially, opting instead to ferry guests into space on Russian rockets launched from a spaceport that will be built in the Caribbean.
Only time will tell if Galactic Suites really will open on time. Skeptics cite the enormous costs that a project like this obviously poses, though, according to Yahoo News, "Claramunt said an anonymous billionaire space enthusiast has granted $3 billion to finance the project."
Via Yahoo News
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