World-first space hotel to cost more than $1 million a night
Finding something truly unique in the hotel industry seems to be getting more and more challenging. The only thing left to do may be to look up into the sky and hope that something is out there.
As such, Houston-based space company, Orion Span, answered that wish this year, with their plans to open “the first luxury hotel in space” by 2022. The company’s Aurora Station will be the first fully modular space station, designed to take six people, four travellers and two crew members on a 12-day stay, 321 kilometres above the Earth.
Named after the light phenomenon that illuminates the polar skies, guests on board the ‘cosy’ 10.6-metre by 4.3-metre interior will be able to “enjoy the exhilaration of zero gravity and fly freely throughout Aurora Station”.
The company has sold out bookings for the first four months. Image: Orion Span
According to the company, “they can gaze at the northern and southern aurora through the many windows, soar over their hometowns, take part in research experiments such as growing food while in orbit, revel in a virtual reality experience on the holodeck, and stay in touch or live-stream with their loved ones back home via high-speed wireless internet access”.
But this out-of-this-world experience doesn’t come cheap. A casual $110,000 ($US80,000) is required for a fully refundable deposit, with travellers then needing to shell out the remaining $12.8 million ($US9.5 million) before they blast off. For that price you could buy an inner-Sydney bar or a Melbourne hotel.
For the week-and-a-half long trip, it works outs to be $1.07 million per night — that’s enough to bring your vacation dreaming back to Earth.
But this new hotel venture seems to already have caught the imagination of the super well-heeled, with the company reporting that the first four months of reservations had sold out within 24 hours of the original announcement.
Regardless, founder and chief executive officer Frank Bunger — who is described by the company as a serial entrepreneur and technology start-up executive — believes it will all be worth it for the ‘wanna-be’ astronauts, as they orbit the Earth every 90 minutes, meaning those aboard will see an average of 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours.
Despite the complexity of launching a hotel space station, the astronomical cost of the stay also covers the three-month training program that guests will have to undertake before they can take the trip.
Ultimately, the company’s plan is to make the experience of space travel more affordable and drive the cost down to a fraction of what it currently is.
It also has plans to sell dedicated modules as the world’s first condominiums in space that Aurora owners will be able to live in, visit, or sublease.
