Is this hotel too ambitious for its own good ? Image Credit: YouTube / The Gateway Foundation
One forward-thinking company is planning to build and launch a rotating space hotel with artificial gravity.
The ambitious orbital outpost, which will be known as the Voyager Class space station, has the potential to be not only the largest, but also the most luxurious off-world habitat ever built.
The station will consist of two concentric rings, with the inner ring being used for docking and the outer ring providing "mounting for habitable modules, solar panels, radiators, and a rail transport system."
These modules will have multiple uses too, with some being dedicated to guest quarters and others being sold to space agencies and private firms for science and research.
The guest modules will be particularly opulent, offering furnished bedrooms, a gym, restaurant, bar and other facilities designed to make the facility a home away from home.
The entire station will even rotate to "produce varying levels of artificial gravity by increasing or decreasing the rate of rotation."
According to the company behind the project - Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC) - the hotel will begin construction in 2025 with a tentative completion date of 2027.
"The station will be designed from the start to accommodate both national space agencies conducting low gravity research and space tourists who want to experience life on a large space station with the comfort of low gravity and the feel of a nice hotel," the company wrote.
But just how feasible is such an extravagant space station within such a short time frame ?
While the concept of a space hotel has been around for a while, nobody has yet built one, not even on a small scale. As things stand, building and launching something like the Voyager Class station within as little as six years certainly seems like a tall order.
I would venture the funding initially of course. How much does it cost to create, construct, staff and operate the ISS, to include maintenance? A commercial business of the scale proposed would likely make those costs much higher if we are fiddling with the same technology and such. The logistics piece would also have to be figured out. Now this likely being a civilian led endeavor, this process might be streamlined but who knows. For it to be up and operational six years? I'm not certain even unlimited funding could make that happen that fast.
Just training the staff, writing procedures, building the infrastructure to support it, would push the date far off.. not saying that's impossible to do it with the technology we have, just saying that doing all that for 2027 is a pipe dream. Just looking at the Virgin galactic program schedule from 15 years ago give us a glimpse that space dreams take time.
My thoughts on this...How? Look at the problems we are facing already, and now they're saying this hotel in space?    My thoughts are something is going to appear and so they're preparing people for it. They will claim 6 years to build a hotel in space when in reality this is impossible, but 6 years time one will appear.  Â
By 2027????? No way. That's only 6-years from now! Pffttt... Nothing of the project is in orbit at this time, and they are still soliciting multi-billion dollar investments (which hasn't happened) Enough upkeep with the ISS, can't imagine the issues with a space hotel... I'll say another 50-years, at least. Â Â Â
A comparsion of both projects dont make sense here. The difference between both stations is that the ISS is mosty financed by tax money and with a low income (yet) by spin-off earnings. The (high) cost of the ISS operation is also caused by the value of the scientific experiment hardware and, the orbital logistic which was done by the Shuttles with launch costs up to 1B USD in the past (I know that value from first hand because I worked for 4 years as a sub-contactor for ESA related ISS projects here in Germany) and later then by the Russians which is/was quite expensive. The Gateway Project i... [More]
I think using the ISS costs as a point of reference is certainly useful. I'm not talking exclusively about the line of accounting. The cost will likely be more for a larger project. For example, I have no idea what the cost is for one launch in the commercial sector? I have no idea. The number of launches required just to get the construction materials into orbit will be what drives the timelines. Is it possible to construct, staff and operate a project like this? Yes, it certainly is possible. To be mission ready within the next six years? No, I don't think it's likely.
Here some usefull information about the costs of orbital logistics. I dont know the number of required launches either but there is one important factor: the ISS habitat and experiment modules required a large cargo bay (Space Shuttle) because they were lifted up in a ready to use fashion. I`m not sure yet if I`m correct but I think the Voyager Station modules will be build by Bigelow Aerospace so these units can lifted up folded, like an airless air mattress, and blown up when arrived in orbit. I think so. The construction isnt an issue and staff will also not be an issue because the requirem... [More]
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